Border Patrol Battles Invaders from Canada

(Dan Catchpole — AP/San Diego Union Tribune)

Officers keep eye out for bugs that threaten species in United States

Alishia Beckham uses a hand-mirror and a flashlight to defend the United States from foreign invaders.

Working aboard ships three football fields long that arrive in Seattle’s bustling port stacked with truck-sized cargo containers, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agricultural specialist scours for bugs, plants or pathogens that could lay waste to native species.

She checks around door frames, pipes, lifeboat winches and other nooks where an Asian gypsy moth might have laid its eggs.

Invasive species can quickly become ecological and economical disasters. The emerald ash borer beetle has killed over 30 million ash trees since it was detected in North America in 2002. European gypsy moths defoliate millions of forested acres every year from North Carolina to Wisconsin to Maine.

“There are so many places on a ship, it could literally take all day if you inspected every inch of the ship,” Beckham said. We do what we can.”

Beckham carries a backpack full of tools: cards illustrating the moth’s life stages, binoculars to inspect areas of the ship she can’t reach, a paint scraper to pry off any egg masses, and a plastic container with a dead adult male and an egg mass to show crew members what she’s looking for.

Most crews are very cooperative and want to know what to look for, Beckham says.

The Asian gypsy moth, like its European cousin, is a rapacious leaf-eater, but it eats a wider variety of trees. Unlike the flightless European female, the Asian female can fly up to 25 miles before laying its eggs, meaning it could quickly spread across the country. Read the complete story.