It sounds like it.
These suckers.
How to prevent invasive jumping worms from ruining your garden
https://www.alleghenyfront.org/how-to-prevent-invasive-asian-jumping-worms-from-ruining-your-garden/
I used straight vinegar squirted directly on them, and they quickly became still and curled up. I thought that killed them but now I see I should have picked out what I could.
Nitrile gloves are a gardeners best friend. They’re impervious to almost anything and yet allow for great dexterity in gardening.
There are mixes thoughts about the vinegar. They sure didn’t like it though. And I’m not sure how long the vinegar will last in the soil.
Maybe burning the soil over in the fall will help. We have a flame thrower thing that’s supposed to work for soil. We’ll have to give it a try. It could also kill weed seeds.
Good grief, we were all just awakened by 4 VERY close* lightning hits in a row. (Actually, I woke up 1st from a deeper, more distant rumble, and then BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM-KABOOM!) about 30 seconds apart, and a 20 second or so hard shower after the 3rd blast, then only really distant rumbles and a another brief (30 seconds?) hard shower followed. Each flash was under one second in front of the thunder...
*Next closest” is when they sound like “PAM!”, where the flash is well under 0.5 seconds in front, and then it’s “pop-PAM!!” where the pop is virtually simultaneous with the flash and may sound like it is inside the house — or maybe inside one’s own head...
What fun. At least we seem to have no damage to electronics.
As for the jumpers: Yep, that’s them.
The article is worded a little poorly, as the biggest issue is, I believe (and per local Forestry profs) that the jumpers eat up the surface “litter” of heavily wooded areas too quickly. Ditto for mulched open areas. Therefor the erosion.
Around here, what the worms do to the naturally occurring soil (clay) is a big improvement. Summers are usually dry enough that the worms don’t eat all the litter by fall, when it is replenished. They may also be inhibited by all the juglone in the soil under the dominant hickory trees.
Gardens with “nice” soil in them (lots of peat-like material) and “nice” soil kept by watering from drying rock hard, and / or mulch, could be problematic. As in eaten up, so to speak. However, I’d think almost any wide spectrum insecticide that has a half-life of over a few days in soil would do the baby worms in.
These Alabama jumpers make GREAT fish bait, as they are very active on a hook, and large as adults. I used to get them in the soil under our big leaf pile out past the garden, and conveniently kept it moist. However, the last few years there have been few of them. I suspect they’ve created a layer of castings so thick that they don’t like it. (I’d never find them in the bottom of the leaves - they’d be a few to several inches down. Possibly they retreat there upon sensing footsteps?
I also never dug one of these up in or under the lawn, FWIW.
Now, let’s see if I can get back to sleep! ;-)