A tiny insect is damaging Vermont’s hemlock trees. The hemlock wooly adelgid eats the trees and subsequently kills them. And there’s no known enemy of the insect, until now.
Researchers have been releasing a type of beetle that feeds exclusively on adelgids to try to stem their spread. Beetles have been released in Pownel this month. VPR’s Mitch Wertlieb gets an update on the program from Jim Esden, a forester in the Vermont Department of Parks and Recreation.