Even as the state prepares to quarantine 96 city blocks on the North Side in an effort to keep the destructive Asian longhorn beetle from dining on trees elsewhere in the area, officials acknowledge that the quarantine will work more like a sieve with gigantic holes than a fine mesh screen.
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Unless officials stop every car, truck and pedestrian leaving the area and look inside every trunk, purse or pocket for the imported bugs, the only beetle traffic that can be monitored in any consistent fashion may be that of the four-wheeled variety from Germany.
As a result, to keep the white-speckled beetle from overrunning the city, neighborhood residents in Ravenswood have been deputized, in effect, and asked to report any possible beetle-collecting activity.
It’s especially important, say officials, in the wake of sightings of strangers roaming the streets with jars and butterfly nets.
Under terms of an arrangement worked out between 47th Ward Ald. Eugene Schulter and police officials, police dispatchers have been alerted to put beetle calls on their list of reported crimes to investigate.
That’s an indication of just how serious officials are about keeping the beetle from infesting other areas of Illinois.
“If people want to break the quarantine, it is almost impossible for us to stop them,” said Stan Smith, an entomologist with the Illinois Department of Agriculture. “It’s the residents who can help make this quarantine work and help us stop the spread of this beetle.”
The quarantine is expected to be declared Tuesday, covering an area bounded by Lawrence Avenue, Irving Park Road, Western Avenue and Clark Street. Violators will be fined $500.
At the heart of the zone is the original 12-block area in which the beetles are known to live.
The quarantine bans anyone from moving raw wood or insects out of a square-mile area. No tree can be trimmed or cut down for fear of sending the insecticide-resistant beetles on a feeding frenzy into new trees.
In the fall, when the beetles are dormant, the infested trees will be cut down and burned.
One arborist said Friday that he had to give a Ravenswood client on Clark Street the bad news that no tree trimming could be done.
“I told him we cannot do any pruning until the quarantine is off,” said Tom Ginnow, an arborist for Hendricksen, The Care of Trees. “We will definitely comply with the state demands. We’re not worried about any loss of business. . . . I worry more about the clients because they have concerns and we can’t address them right now.”
The real risk of beetle spread, officials say, comes not from legitimate tree-trimming companies, but from souvenir hunters and unscrupulous bug collectors captivated by the idea of capturing one of the rare Asian specimens.
And, in fact, residents say that they have had plenty of encounters with souvenir hunters.
“We’ve literally chased people away who were not from our neighborhood, collecting them instead of killing them,” said Joan Palfi of the 4300 block of North Wolcott Avenue.
And another neighbor, Karen Huelskoetter, said two strangers hinted that the bugs were worth $100 apiece.
“They seemed real rookies–didn’t know whether to look up or down, didn’t know whether to look in the trees or the ground,” said Huelskoetter, who lives in the 4300 block of North Winchester Avenue, at the heart of the infestation.
Huelskoetter told them that most residents have been killing, not collecting, the beetles. She herself had just stepped on four, she noted.
One of the aghast bug collectors told her, “That’s $400 you stepped on,” she said.
Entomologists say that legitimate collectors never offer money for bugs.
“There’s certainly no people from the university or other institutions that would barter like that,” said James Appleby, an entomologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “That would be very unethical.”
Scientists who do gather samples of dangerous insects for research kill them on the spot because the risk of an accidental escape is too great, Appleby said.
He also collected some of the beetles last week but got permission from the state Department of Agriculture ahead of time. In addition, following standard professional practice, his specimens did not leave the neighborhood alive.
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Sometime this week, a beetle command headquarters will be set up in the neighborhood for agriculture officials who are trying to contain the infestation. That office will have a phone number residents can use to report beetle collectors. Residents also can call Schulter’s ward offices.
“People are feeling helpless,” Schulter said, “and they want to make sure that we contain this to the neighborhood.”
One upset Chicagoan related the chilling sight of a carful of people who jumped out of their vehicle, collected some beetles and drove off.
“I’m sure they’re all over by now,” said Aaron Short.
Officials warn that anybody who does have a bug in a jar outside the zone will be in violation of the quarantine. And as for anybody who thinks their bug has died, they had better think again before dumping it in the garden.
“You may think it’s dead,” said Norm Seyborg, a plant and pesticide specialist with the Illinois Department of Agriculture. “(But) they have a way of reviving. They’re survivors.”