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Posted on 06/05/2026 6:54:22 AM PDT by metmom
America Spent $12.5 Billion Fighting the Emerald Ash Borer. The Woodpeckers Did It For Free In 2002, a beetle from eastern China arrived in a Detroit shipping crate and went on to kill more than 100 million American ash trees. The federal response cost $12.5 billion. It did not stop the beetle.
What did stop it was already in the woods. Four native bird species — and one parasitic wasp the size of a sewing needle — quietly built a predation pyramid that no quarantine, no insecticide injection, and no government program had ever designed.
This documentary follows the decade of bark-peeling, camera-trapping, and citizen-science data that revealed how the hairy woodpecker, the downy woodpecker, the red-bellied woodpecker, the white-breasted nuthatch, and a native wasp called Atanycolus cappaerti turned a continental ecological disaster into something foresters now call "lingering ash" — young trees that are starting to survive in the same counties that lost everything fifteen years ago.
Filmed in the spirit of long-form ecological storytelling. No AI narration. No clickbait. Just the slow, real work of a forest doing what biologists never asked it to do.
If you spend time on land that has been hit by the emerald ash borer — Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New York, anywhere east of the Rockies — drop a comment below. Are you seeing the woodpeckers come back? Are your young ash surviving? The ground truth from the people who live there matters more than any federal report.
Hit subscribe if you want more long-form work like this. Real research. Real characters. No AI. No filler.
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Ping
What’s left laying around is all rotted out, but for a good 15 years all that dead ash laying around heated my winters wonderfully!! Im talking $25 a month gas bills when that wood burner was burnin!!
I cut down and sold the firewood locally of the last two White Ash trees on my property about five years ago.
They were two beautiful trees with 40’ clear trunks.
I counted the growth rings. They were both just over 100 years old.
It was a shame to cut them up into firewood.
In the last five years there has been a big push to cut down all the White Ash trees along the roads in NH by Eversource’s power lines. There are hundreds laying on the ground in the woods in my area.
FYI, MLB had to switch from White Ash to Sugar Maple for their baseball bats. There are just not any Ash trees left.
Another gift from CHINA.
> a beetle from eastern China arrived in a Detroit shipping crate <
Another gift from our good friends, the ChiComs.
Same with the Brown marmorated stink bug
When it first appeared as an invasive species in our area (western MA), it quickly appeared everywhere, about 15 years ago. They especially like to wedge into window, door and roof seams in south-facing parts of the house, for winter.
A couple years after that, I saw some Robins pecking at one, and realized the local critters had found a new food source
While stink bugs still are around, they are found in much lower numbers
Had all of mine cut down in the ‘90’s.
Funny this story pops up as riding my bike last weekend I noticed there are still many that made it in my neighborhood.🙂
The same thing on a smaller scale is happening in the Florida Everglades against the Pythons.
Bobcats, Alligators and other native species have started to adapt and fight back against the pythons.
Along with aggressive hunting of pythons hopefully they can make a dent in them.
My previous house, which I sold 9 years ago had mature ash trees on the property. They were the ONLY trees I had and they were beautiful.
I spent nearly 900 dollars every year on treatment for them - I had to mix it with water and pour it around the roots in the spring. I saved every one of those trees except one way in the back that the little Chinese bastards had already infested. I warned the new owner to continue treating once a year.
Apparently they didn’t listen. I drove by it last summer and the yard was treeless. It was heartbreaking to see.
The China invasion has cost us so much more than just lost jobs.
We are being attacked in California by the horrible eucalyptus leaf beetle - a huge infestation that started in 2003 - I have to pay a lot of money to treat my 30-year old trees every six months - trees which shade my home and yard in our hot summers.
My city has decided not to treat any eucalyptus trees on city-owned property - too expensive - so they will be cut down, unfortunately. Eucalyptus are not suited to California and are illegal to plant in San Francisco (firefighters call them gasoline trees).
Hate to see them cut down - and replaced with smaller crepe myrtle trees - the wood can be burned but will coat the inside of your chimney with creosote:
“The wood’s high natural oil content accelerates the formation of flammable creosote in chimneys, requiring frequent professional cleaning to prevent chimney fires.”
We now have this killing the Eastern Hemlock here in the NE/New England.
From the Google AI:
“Eastern hemlock trees are primarily being killed by the hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA), an invasive, aphid-like insect from Asia. These tiny pests attach to the base of hemlock needles and feed on the tree’s sap, which slowly drains nutrients and injects a toxic saliva that causes premature needle drop and branch dieback.”
Another gift that came into one of the mid Atlantic ports from CHINA.
You can treat your hemlock trees too.
I did a few years ago with these insecticide pellets that a tree guy recommended. I had to go around with a cordless drill and drill into the bark around the tree. Insert the pellets. So far all the trees in my yard are still living. However, there are several dead hemlocks in the woods behind my house. Sixty plus foot tall trees two feet in diameter that are 100% bare of foliage/needles.
Eucalyptus are not native to California. They were brought in from other parts of the world. That is probably why they decided not to save them. And the Benjamins
The main problem with the mass die-off of ash trees is that they often grow in river bottomland habitats where other trees don't do well, so it isn't as though oak and maple will just fill in the gaps. Instead, we'll just have empty, muddy floodplains.
I think Pete put that on our Victory Garden Thread? We had an Ash, but the borers got it. Beau cut it down as it might have fallen on the deck.
That thing will not die! It keep re-sprouting. Right now it looks like a shrub. I’m asking him to keep the tallest, straightest ‘leader’ to see if it will come back to being a tree again!
Thoughts?
They were brought into California from Australia as wind breaks - and someone thought they’d be good for railroad ties b/c they grow very quickly - but the wood is far too soft and the tree twists as it grows.
They have shallow roots and fall over during our high winds - they also exacerbate wildfires.
No, they are not suited for Southern California.
But I love mine - they smell wonderful and provide a lot of shade.
Ping for later
Just saw a beautiful pileated near State College, Pa recently!
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