The pair continued on their rounds, checking their maps to find the traps, which resemble 4-foot-long black lanterns with a white plastic cup at the bottom. "I’ll be at the beach and find myself staring at coconut trees all afternoon," Potter said. It takes a practiced eye to spot early damage on an otherwise healthy tree, and the habit can be hard to break off duty. "But now a lot of the coconut trees are just completely torn up. "When we first started coming out here six months ago, none of the trees were damaged," Potter said. Less than 100 yards away, Potter spotted two more trees just starting to show damage. Most of the affected trees in this community have been tagged and are continually monitored. The pair scanned the tree tops for leaves that have been snipped in an inverted V-shape - a sign of beetle damage. The former military housing community is filled with coconut trees. On a recent Friday, team leaders Chad Goldstein and Zachary Potter headed out on their daily rounds to Iroquois Point, just across the harbor from beetle ground zero at Pearl Harbor. So far, they’ve put up 2,700 beetle traps across Oahu and surveyed more than 100,000 trees. Field teams check trees, set up traps and monitor mulch piles for signs of beetle larvae. "If somebody is coming to buy a property in Hawaii, they will expect nice palm trees," says Curtiss, an entomologist with the plant pest control branch of Hawaii’s Department of Agriculture.Ĭurtiss leads a group of about 40 people charged with eradicating the bug. The coconut tree is depicted in the ancient hula, and in some neighborhoods, every other house has a palm tree growing in the front yard. The urgency to address the problem is both cultural and financial. It’s going to take a long time, but it’s still possible," said Rob Curtiss, incident commander for Hawaii’s coconut rhinoceros beetle eradication program, a joint operation of the U.S. "At this point, eradication is still possible. 23, 2014, was the anniversary of the beetle’s discovery on coconut palms at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam - state officials are cautiously optimistic. Adult beetles burrow into the crowns of palm trees to feed on their sap, damaging developing leaves and eventually killing the trees.Ĭoncerns that the thumb-sized pest, named for its curved horn, could hitch a ride to California or Florida and attack thriving palm oil and date industries there have prompted federal and state officials to declare the beetle’s discovery in Honolulu a pest emergency. Much as the Asian long-horned beetle attacked maple and elm trees on the East Coast, the coconut rhinoceros beetle could devastate Hawaii’s palm trees and move on to bananas, papayas, sugar cane and other crops afterward. Their nemesis is the latest in a long line of invasive species to arrive here: the coconut rhinoceros beetle. That possibility has state officials worried because Hawaii’s iconic swaying palm trees are under attack. Visitors flock to the Hawaiian Islands for sun-soaked holidays filled with silky beaches, turquoise water, lush green hillsides - and naked palm trees missing their leafy crowns?
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