Last week, a beautiful moth on a flower outside the window caught the attention of this reporter. Closer inspection confirmed the suspicion: it was a spotted lanternfly, an invasive insect that New Yorkers are under orders from scientists to kill mercilessly.
It is now clear that the lanterns, which can devastate crops such as grapes and apples, damage trees and make sitting outside unpleasant, have made their biggest inroads into metropolitan areas since they first appeared here in 2020. And while residents of New York have set about killing bugs with typical enthusiasm, relying on the citizens as vigilante exterminators is proving inadequate.
Here’s a partial list of things New Yorkers have seen lanterns do in the past few days: Crawling skyward past a ninth-floor window on Roosevelt Island. Get crushed by day campers in Prospect Park, their corpses being counted for a race. Stop on the lapel of an elegantly dressed woman in a downtown cafe. Hang out with a Frosé dispenser in the sculpture garden at the Museum of Modern Art. Lay soaking wet on Rockaway Beach, apparently drowned by waves. And brazenly occupy ledges, screens, trees and terraces across the five boroughs, sometimes dodging multiple stomping attempts.
Since lanternflies, native to parts of Asia, arrived in the United States in 2011 — in a shipment of rocks, scientists say — infestations have been documented in 12 states, including Pennsylvania and New Jersey, on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley and Western New York. Observations of individual lanternflies tracked by the New York State Integrated Pest Management Project extend even further. The spread brings the bugs into the reach of upstate orchards and Finger Lakes vineyards, which adult borers can damage by feeding on leaves and stems.
All of which begs the question: Is civil wrongdoing really the way to go?
Mariel Anzelone, an urban ecologist in New York, says the issue is part of a larger conundrum about the roles of individuals and governments in dealing with growing, intractable environmental problems.
Just as asking people to recycle and drive less doesn’t remove the need for national and global government action to address the climate crisis and protect ecosystems, she said, freelance insect suppressors can’t turn back the tide of flashlights on their own. In an ideal world, government agencies would do more to combat invasive species.
However, these agencies tend to be understaffed and under-resourced, and every little bit helps.
“Relying solely on individuals is not going to get us there,” Ms. Anzelone said, referring to both the lanterns and the heating planet.
“But maybe individual actions are a way to get people involved,” she added. “It’s not so much about the individual’s carbon footprint or those three flashlights that kill in the summer. It’s about education and engagement, and maybe turning them into the person who calls their council member to ask for more funding for the parks department or votes for local and national candidates to take real action on the climate .
Lanternflies, Ms. Anzelone said, “invite a lot of participants.” They’re easy to identify, they fly clumsily and show up among people, not just “in the woods — and there’s something you can do,” she said.
City and state agencies have published instructions on how to identify the insects (larvae look like ticks, while adults look like gray, mottled moths, with red coloring often hidden behind their wings), how to avoid spreading them (check cars and outdoor equipment before traveling ), how to document and report them, and how to buy or build environmentally safe traps.
Joseph Borrelli, a Republican City Council member from Staten Island, recently urged the city’s parks and health departments to take action against the flies. In a letter first reported by the Staten Island Advance, he called them a “new threat to our ecology” that is “reproducing at an alarming rate” and is frightening some residents, even though the flies do not harm people or animals.
But Mr. Borrelli didn’t wait for a city agency to act. On Saturday at a park in Staten Island’s Tottenville neighborhood, he is sponsoring a free workshop on trap building.
Getting involved, Ms. Anzelone said, can get people thinking about and acting on broader threats, such as other invasive species that crowd out bees and the native plants they prefer. There is already a growing movement among gardeners to grow pollinator-friendly species.
Some native plant advocates see a silver lining in the ongoing invasion: The lanterns feed on the tree of heaven, or ailanthus, another invasive, fast-growing Asian species introduced in the 1700s to drain swamps and shade streets.
New York has a love-hate relationship with the aileron, a symbol of power in the classic A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and a stinky, more ambiguous botanical character in the more recent Brooklyn novel, Fortress of Solitude — and now, for the first time once a species appeared that could cause it.
When it comes to freelance killings, Ms. Anzelone voted with her feet – or leg – yesterday. She saw a lantern on a sidewalk in Brooklyn. She took a picture of it. Then she stepped on him.
“I did my little part,” she said.
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