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Local region sees large outbreak of tent caterpillars

Isabel Braverman - Staff Writer
Posted 9/13/19

REGION — If you've looked up in the trees recently you may have noticed a strange web-like formation sitting in the branches. Upon closer inspection, you will see that the webs are filled with …

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Local region sees large outbreak of tent caterpillars

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REGION — If you've looked up in the trees recently you may have noticed a strange web-like formation sitting in the branches. Upon closer inspection, you will see that the webs are filled with caterpillars. You may have also noticed that there seems to be a lot of them in our region this year. And you would be correct.

In fact, these strange creatures are called forest tent caterpillars and every 10 to 12 years there are large outbreaks of the species, which overtake trees to lay their eggs. If you're like most people, you may have wondered why that is. So we gave Christopher Prentis of Lower Hudson Forestry Service a call to find out.

“The last couple months I've been getting a lot of phone calls or emails about it, especially centered around that area,” Prentis said.

He said the caterpillar population seems to be centered around the Delaware River Valley and goes all the way down to Matamoras, PA and northern New Jersey.

The caterpillars feed on the leaves and are often found in maple, cherry, or walnut trees but can also be found in other hardwood trees. They began appearing around the end of June and will die off after they lay their eggs.

“These kind of species are very cyclical in nature,” Prentis said. “They are always around, but typically around in low levels where people don't see the effects of them. And then every 10 to 12 years you get these large outbreaks. This year we're seeing one of those outbreaks right now.”

Should you be worried about the tent caterpillars killing the trees?

“Multiple defoliations per year can lead to tree mortality,” Prentis said. “But a single defoliation over this summer may or may not actually kill the tree, more often than not it does not kill the tree unless there is some other stress on the tree.”

Prentis said you can spray from an airplane to kill the caterpillars, but it is costly and you would need to cover a large area of land to do it.

It is likely you will see the leaves on the trees come back next year, and you should look in the middle of May for trees that don't come back.

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