Cleveland – The stained lantern, an invasive sheet of leaf -sheds detected for the first time in the United States a decade ago, it has constantly spread through The east coast and to the west With little intervene on your way.
But now researchers are deploying a new weapon to delay their advance, dogs specially trained with the ability to sniff the winged insect eggs before they hatch.
Since the end of last year, four of the dogs have been touring parks in the Cleveland area in search of hidden egg masses around trees, shrubs, parks banks, landscape rocks and bridge pillars. Each egg mass can produce 30 to 50 stained flashlight flies.
Until now, dogs have discovered more than 4,000 of the masses, which means they have helped eradicate up to 200,000 of the insects that damage Grapes, fruit trees, hops And hard woods, said Connie Hausman, senior manager of Cleveland Metroparks conservation sciences.
In just a few hours in April, dogs found about 1,100 egg masses in the Cleveland Metroparks zoo, said Hausman.
Not just any dog can go looking, he said.
“Everyone has wonderful noses, but not all are eligible,” he said. “They had to pass tests to test their service.”
The dogs were trained through a research project led by a group from the University of Virginia Tech, which is proposed to delay the spread of insects that are native to Eastern Asia and recognizable by their distinctive black spots and bright red wing marks.
The four who worked in Cleveland, owned by local residents, already had smell training before working with Virginia Tech to improve their noses to detect stained flies.
Once they detect a new mass of eggs, dogs receive a gift from their handlers that scrape the mud -shaped masses.
