CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Butler county – In a hedgerow behind an elementary school, state entomologist Sven-Erik Spichiger works a screwdriver into the trunk of a dying ash tree, peels away a foot-long strip of bark and reveals something oddly beautiful yet ultimately horrific in the wood beneath: a network of S-shaped galleries, representing the years-long progress of innumerable gnawing larvae.
Trunks like this one are the nurseries of the emerald ash borer beetle, an accidental import from Asia that threatens the very existence of North America’s five varieties of ash and may, experts fear, already be inhabiting other parts of Pennsylvania, including the Lehigh Valley. full story
