Foreign Insects, Diseases got into US

As efforts post 9/11 turned to preventing further terror acts, other preventative measures and manpower used to protect the US from invasive species of plants and insects were gutted by the newly formed DHS.

www.sfgate.com

Dozens of foreign insects and plant diseases slipped undetected into the United States in the years after 9/11, when authorities were so focused on preventing another attack that they overlooked a pest explosion that threatened the quality of the nation's food supply.

At the time, hundreds of agricultural scientists responsible for stopping invasive species at the border were reassigned to anti-terrorism duties in the newly formed Homeland Security Department — a move that scientists say cost billions of dollars in crop damage and eradication efforts from California vineyards to Florida citrus groves.

What's worse? Look what happened to one of those inspectors, who used their expertise to alert the authorities to infected plant cuttings..

(from same sourced article above)

While working at an international mail center outside San Francisco, the inspector found a package destined for Ventura labeled "books and chocolates." Inside were 350 citrus cuttings from Japan that were infested with canker, which has killed more than 2 million trees across Florida but does not exist in California.

He showed it to a supervisor, who, according to the Congressional Record, replied: "Look, we are here to protect the country from acts of terrorism. What do you expect me to do?"

The inspector sidestepped the supervisor and called the USDA. The resulting investigation ended with arrests and the incineration of 4,000 potentially infected trees that had been growing at an unregistered nursery in a prime citrus region.

But within a month, the whistleblower was demoted to search through the dirty laundry of passengers returning from foreign trips.

Way to go DHS...

Booo!
That is pathetic to demote the people who actually have a brain and use it on the job. About par for our government though which is the primary reason they all need to find new jobs in the near future.
If you were total the damages done in the US by beetles, moths and diseases introduced from elsewhere I think we would all be amazed. Pine beetles, woolly adelgids destroying the hemlocks, dutch elm disease are just a few of the goodies brought from overseas. We have yet to find out how much damage the brown stink bugs are going to do but I'm sure it will be severe.
Why is it that we only hear about these pests ruining agricultural in the US. Have we exported anything to China that is ravaging their forests or crops?
Terrorism is becoming a stale cartoon that nobody but DHS gives a hoot about. It's worth neither the money or the loss of our rights what they have done in the name of combating it. Personally, I'll get real satisfaction from seeing these Federal employees in the Unemployment office after they run out of money. I'd just like to see them suffer like the rest of us.

reply to post by Asktheanimals


Those brown stink bugs are the results of this ? Where did those come from?

They are flourishing here, and I have to fight them off as they try to ride out the winter by hiding in my house

reply to post by JacKatMtn


A gift from China!
What should we send in return, Garth maybe?

reply to post by Asktheanimals


yep.. but looks like it was first spotted in 1998..

LINK



Brown marmorated stink bug
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Brown marmorated stink bug

Adult
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hemiptera
Family: Pentatomidae
Genus: Halyomorpha
Species: H. halys
Binomial name
Halyomorpha halys
Stål

Halyomorpha halys, the brown marmorated stink bug, or simply the stink bug, is an insect in the family Pentatomidae, and it is native to China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan.[1] It was accidentally introduced into the United States, with the first specimen being collected in September 1998.[2] The brown marmorated stink bug is considered to be an agricultural pest,[3] and by 2010-11 has become a season-long pest in U.S. orchards.[4]

This is an absolute and utter outrage. This is the sort of thing we need to be protesting about. We all pay through the nose on taxes only to have it go where? I'm a Christian and all for charity to those in need but we ship off billions to other countries, to see most of it pocketed by warlords, while pinching pennies where the money is most needed. If we don't get our priorities in line and allocate the money back where it belongs to secure our resources and our people right within our own borders, all the money we are allocating to the rest of the world, ostensibly to secure our national interests, will be for nought. What good is it to secure basically stolen resources in another country if we let in tainted and poisoned consumer goods to kill us at home where our guard is down, and let in agricultural pests that lay waste to our ecosystem?

I have to say by and large I've been satisfied with local representation and local government securing my quality of life. But the waste and incompetence at the federal level just staggers my senses.

reply to post by JacKatMtn


The situation is out-of-control. As with prions, which also are now omnipresent in the environment, it might be best to "go with the flow"...

Courting Controversy with a New View on Exotic Species

A number of biologists are challenging the long-held orthodoxy that alien species are inherently bad. In their contrarian view, many introduced species have proven valuable and useful and have increased the diversity and resiliency of native ecosystems.

When biologist Mark A. Davis talks about exotic species, he eventually comes to LTL, his shorthand for Learn to Love them. Flying in the face of the conventional wisdom among biologists that exotic species are harmful to native ecosystems, Davis and a small cohort of biologists espouse a heretical viewpoint: Exotic species are here to stay, so get used to them, and forget about ripping out the fast-spreading shrub, buckthorn, on a large scale or throwing Asian carp on the bank to die.

If the newcomers are only changing the ecosystem but “not causing significant harm,” then “altering one’s perspective is certainly much less costly than any other sort of management program,” Davis writes in his recently published book, Invasion Biology.

Good catch. S&F&

reply to post by soficrow


I see where that article is going, but I just can't bring myself to share my own home (ecosystem) with those invasive brown stink bugs

Originally posted by JacKatMtn
reply to post by Asktheanimals

 

yep.. but looks like it was first spotted in 1998..

LINK



Brown marmorated stink bug
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Brown marmorated stink bug

Adult
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hemiptera
Family: Pentatomidae
Genus: Halyomorpha
Species: H. halys
Binomial name
Halyomorpha halys
Stål

Halyomorpha halys, the brown marmorated stink bug, or simply the stink bug, is an insect in the family Pentatomidae, and it is native to China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan.[1] It was accidentally introduced into the United States, with the first specimen being collected in September 1998.[2] The brown marmorated stink bug is considered to be an agricultural pest,[3] and by 2010-11 has become a season-long pest in U.S. orchards.[4]

edit on Mon, 10 Oct 2011 11:47:17 -0500 by JacKatMtn because: (no reason given)

I hate those bug..man do i hate those bugs...way to many of them...man i cant stand them....

Originally posted by JacKatMtn
reply to post by soficrow

 

I see where that article is going, but I just can't bring myself to share my own home (ecosystem) with those invasive brown stink bugs

They wont go away....there nasty as all get out..Oh i think there blind..he way they fly around and bang into everything..Man i really cant stand those bugs.

reply to post by JacKatMtn




....I don't have a stinkbug problem. But I live in a kind of a cottage and bugs come in a lot during spring and fall. I just let the spiders get'em.