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The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) declares August as “Tree Check Month” for the Asian longhorned beetle (ALB). USDA and its partners are asking the public to check their trees for this invasive insect and the damage it causes and limit the movement of ALB-host materials, such as firewood. August is the most important time of year to look for the beetle because it is when people are most likely to see adult beetles.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is working with the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) to combat the Mexican fruit fly (Anastrepha ludens) in Cameron and Willacy Counties in Texas. Following the detection of this pest in Cameron and Willacy Counties in January 2020, APHIS put quarantines in place to contain this fruit fly and is conducting surveys to find and treat infestations. Mexican fruit fly is one of the world's most destructive invasive pests, attacking more than 40 different kinds of fruits and vegetables. This invasive fruit fly does not harm humans or animals but it poses a serious threat to the Texas citrus industry.

APHIS needs the public's help to limit this invasive fruit fly's spread. We are asking residents living or working within Mexican fruit fly quarantine areas to cooperate with survey teams and give them access to your property. Surveyors will have official credentials identifying them as U.S. Department of Agriculture or TDA employees. With the residents' permission, they will inspect fruit trees on residential properties in quarantine zones and hang traps. If APHIS or TDA detect Mexican fruit flies, they will work with residents and business owners to eradicate the pest from infested properties.

If you live in the Lower Rio Grande Valley and think you might have Mexican fruit flies on your property, please call APHIS at 956-421-4041. With your help, we can protect local agriculture and stop the spread of this destructive pest.

USDA announced the agency is planning to enhance testing and monitoring for H5N1, building on measures taken by USDA since the beginning of the avian influenza outbreak. In partnership with state veterinarians, USDA will implement a tiered strategy to collect milk samples to better assess where H5N1 is present, with the goal to better inform biosecurity and containment measures, as well as to inform state-led efforts to reduce risk to farm workers who may be in contact with animals infected with H5N1. Since this disease was first detected in dairy cattle in March 2024, the USDA and state and federal partners have taken several steps to better understand the virus and work to eliminate it from dairy herds.
See related resource: Avian Influenza

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is allocating more than $70 million to support 350 projects under the Plant Protection Act’s Section 7721 program as part of a nationwide effort to strengthen the country’s infrastructure for pest detection, surveillance, and mitigation, as well as protect the U.S. nursery system. Universities, states, federal agencies, nongovernmental organizations, nonprofits, and Tribal organizations will carry out selected projects in 48 states, Guam, and Puerto Rico.

From March to May 2024, scientists from the USGS will install baiting platforms for invasive grass carp and equipment for monitoring fish movement in pool 19 of the Upper Mississippi River. Pool 19 contains 30,466 acres of aquatic habitat, extending 46.3 miles from Lock & Dam 19 located near Keokuk, Iowa upstream to Lock & Dam 18 located near Burlington, Iowa.

Project completion is expected by December 2024, with results being publicly available in 2025. This project is supported through the U.S. Geological Survey Ecosystems Mission Area, Biological Threats Research Program, and the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.

Recent hurricanes may have spread non-native freshwater plants and animals into new water bodies, where some of them can disrupt living communities or change the landscape. To help land managers find and manage these flood-borne newcomers, scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey have created four online maps, one for each hurricane. These “storm tracker” map sets, on which users can see the potential spread of any of 226 non-native aquatic plant and animal species during the 2017 hurricane season. For more information, see Flood and Storm Tracker (FaST) Maps.

Natural resource managers in British Columbia discovered several adult male and female European green crabs on Haida Gwaii this past July. Alarm bells immediately went off for biologists in Alaska. The archipelago of Haida Gwaii, off the coast of Prince Rupert in British Columbia, is very close to Alaska. The July discovery is the closest confirmed finding of the invasive crustacean since it was first detected in the San Francisco Bay area in 1989.

The Washington Invasive Species Council, state agencies and researchers are calling for a census in May to help determine the location of Scotch broom throughout the state. "We need everyone's help to size up the problem," said Justin Bush, executive coordinator of the Washington Invasive Species Council. "Without baseline information about the location and population size, we don’t have enough details to determine solutions. The information from the census will help us set short- and long-term action plans." Yellow flowered, Scotch broom is hard to miss when blooming. It can be found in 30 of Washington's 39 counties [PDF, 282 KB]. While known to be spread across the state, specific locations and patch sizes are not well documented, leading to the council's call for a month-long census.

"We're asking people to send us information from their neighborhoods," Bush said. "The information can be transmitted easily to the council by using the Washington Invasives mobile app or by visiting Report a Sighting. Sightings should include a photograph of the plant that shows enough detail that the plant can be verified by an expert. A description of the size of the patch is also helpful, such as whether the patch is the size of a motorcycle, a car, a school bus or multiple school buses. Photographs also can be shared with the council on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter by using the hashtags #TheGreatScotchBroomCensus and #ScotchBroom2020Census."

The Invasive Species Data Mobilization Campaign of the Western Governors’ Association seeks to encourage national, state, and local land managers, private landowners, and non-governmental organizations to enter previously unavailable data into new or existing invasive species data management platforms using Findings and Recommendations (May 15, 2018) [PDF, 244 KB] developed by WGA and invasive species data experts. WGA and the North American Invasive Species Management Association launched the campaign in December 2020 with a webinar featured representatives from the four existing data platforms -- EDDMapS, iMapInvasives, BISON (see note below), and USGS NAS -- discussing the importance of invasive species data standardization and sharing.
Note: GBIF-US was formerly hosted at BISON.USGS.gov. The BISON website was taken down on December 17, 2021 and users are redirected to www.gbif.us.

After weeks of trapping and searching, Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) entomologists have located an Asian giant hornet nest on a property in Blaine – the first ever such nest found in the U.S.