Emerging Issues

The National CAPS Committee will revise the National Pest Surveillance Guidelines when annually reviewing the policy, strategy, and performance of the CAPS program. The NCC also will approve annually a “Priority Pest List.” This list will include the Commodity and Taxonomic Survey Pests, as well as Pests of Economic and Environmental Importance (OPEP Prioritized List). The Priority Pest List will be based on input by PPQ, the States, Center for Plant Health Science and Technology (CPHST), National Identification Services (NIS), and commodity organizations.

The United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) confirmed the presence of virulent Newcastle disease in a small flock of backyard exhibition chickens in Utah County, Utah. This is the first case of virulent Newcastle disease in Utah. This case is believed to be connected to the current outbreak of virulent Newcastle disease in California, as three of the birds at the premises were recently moved to Utah from Los Angeles County, California. Since May 2018, 299 cases of Newcastle disease have been confirmed in Southern California, primarily in backyard exhibition birds.

Virulent Newcastle disease is not a food safety concern. No human cases of Newcastle disease have ever occurred from eating poultry products.

USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) confirmed the presence of virulent Newcastle disease in a commercial chicken flock in Riverside County, California. This finding is part of an outbreak in southern California that began in May 2018 in backyard exhibition birds. This is the first case in commercial poultry since 2003.

Virulent Newcastle disease is not a food safety concern.  No human cases of Newcastle disease have ever occurred from eating poultry products.

PestLens is APHIS-PPQ's phytosanitary early-warning system that collects and distributes new information on exotic plant pests and provides a web-based platform for documenting safeguarding decisions and resulting actions. A weekly e-mail notification is sent to PestLens subscribers.
Note: While PestLens was developed for PPQ, its audience now extends beyond PPQ to a wide range of international plant protection officials.

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources' Wildlife Resources Division confirmed someone found a northern snakehead in early October in a pond on private property in Gwinnett County, marking the first time the invasive fish has been found in the state. Fishermen who find a northern snakehead should take pictures, note where it was caught and then report it.

The Maryland Department of Agriculture has confirmed that a single adult spotted lanternfly has been found on a trap in the northeast corner of Cecil County near the border of Pennsylvania and Delaware. This is the first confirmed sighting of the invasive species in Maryland, and the department does not believe there is an established population of the pest in the state. If you suspect you have found a spotted lantern fly egg mass, nymph, or adult, snap a picture of it, collect it, put it in a plastic bag, freeze it, and report it to the Maryland Department of Agriculture at DontBug.MD@maryland.gov.

The Joro spider, native from Japan, first arrived stateside around 2013 and has since spread across the state and Southeast. But new research from the University of Georgia suggests the invasive arachnids could spread through most of the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. Joros don't appear to have much of an effect on local food webs or ecosystems, said Andy Davis, corresponding author of the study and a research scientist in the Odum School of Ecology. They may even serve as an additional food source for native predators like birds.
See also: Like it or not, Joro spiders are here to stay (News - Oct 26, 2020)