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Editors note: Don’t Move Firewood is thrilled to have scored this first-ever exclusive interview with an invasive forest pest, the emerald ash borer.

Q. Thanks for granting us this interview- I know you are really busy this time of year.

A. You’re welcome. Spring is my favorite season- I spend a lot of time on personal growth, and sometimes I get in a little traveling if I can. You know, camping trips, baseball…

Q. Personal growth? Tell us more about that.

A. My life – it’s like a cycle, really – revolves around the seasons. By spring I’ve grown into a full sized larvae, ready to transition from within my ash tree into a glittering emerald adult beetle. And then I chew my way out into the warm air! It’s marvelous to be an insect in spring.

(credit: Jared Spokowsky, Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Bugwood.org)

Q. I see. We’re all quite excited for spring, I suppose. It has been a really tough winter.

A. Yes, I’m looking forward to the sunshine, flitting happily from tree to tree, finding just the right ash tree to infest with my many white grub-like offspring.

Q. Around here we’ve been pretty unhappy with just that- how you’ve been infesting ash trees and killing them. You are an invasive species, and basically once an ash tree is infested with multiple larvae, it dies. Do you have anything to say in your defense here?

A. I’m just a beetle- I don’t like to reflect on my own actions. I like to eat and procreate. Besides, it was you people that brought me to North America. Your mistake, your fault, now I’m your problem.

Q. That’s harsh. I don’t even know how to respond.

A. Yeah, and you want to know what? I’d still probably be confined to one state- just Michigan! – if you people hadn’t been transporting me and my larvae all around the nation on contaminated firewood. Sure, it was almost understandable before you discovered me and my brethren had invaded… back in 2002. But c’mon- its 2015 – you people are bringing this on yourself.

Q.  That’s why there’s the Don’t Move Firewood campaign. We’re working on it.

A.   Ugh- don’t talk about those horrible people and their “Don’t Move Firewood- Buy It Where You Burn It” message. Ruining my camping trips, my RV itinerary, my big plans. I was going to finally see the boulevards of Salt Lake City! The steep streets of San Francisco! The gorgeous riverbanks of Montana! But now people are starting to buy firewood locally- and I don’t get to go on nearly so many camping trips. It sucks. I hate them.

Q. Sounds like I really touched a nerve there. Let’s change the subject… Spring Training? You a Yankees fan? Sox?

A. Funny you mention it, I’m sort of blacklisted by those guys.

Q. Oh for pete’s… don’t tell me. You’ve been eating their bats, haven’t you.

A. I mean, I can’t eat baseball bat in the hand of a player, no. I’m not a termite. But I can destroy the entire forest that the bats come from, ensuring that America’s pastime has to depend entirely on imported wood or metal bats.  By the way, here’s a hot stock tip, sucker– invest in aluminum!  Hahaha… PING! Ohhhh, I kill me.

Q. That’s just mean. I can’t imagine baseball without the crack of a wooden bat –that’s the tradition, that’s the culture. That’s like saying we’d have to import apples for pie.

A. That’s just how I roll. I don’t care what you use the wood for- baseball bats, shading the streets of your towns, traditional basket weaving, whatever floats your boat. Oh, and boats! Ha! Ash is so flexible, great for building handmade boats. You’re… never asking me back for another interview, are you.

Q. No. You’re like talking to a movie villain. This is painful.

A. My pleasure.

 

Many thanks to Suzanne Jacob’s “Meet the Invasives” Interview Series from Invasive Species Awareness Week, February 2015 on Grist.org, which served as the creative inspiration for this piece.

Guest blog authored by Jessica Simons, Southeast Michigan Resource Conservation and Development Council

 

Thanks to the tireless work of so many organizations and agencies, the phrase “Don’t Move Firewood” is an increasingly common refrain among campers and outdoors enthusiasts. However, this message often brings about an immediate follow-up question: “So, where should I get it?”

 

Michigan developed a unique response to that problem in 2012, when the Southeast Michigan Resource Conservation and Development Council (SEMIRCD) launched Firewood Scout (https://firewoodscout.org) through support from the USDA Forest Service. This website holds a basic directory of Michigan’s firewood vendors that is searchable via the Google maps platform, encouraging both desktop, laptop, tablet and mobile users to find local sources for firewood before they travel. In the site’s first few years of operation, it proved to be a simple, user-friendly, and cost-effective method for providing important information that can help empower customers to make better decisions regarding firewood.

 

image: Firewood Scout front page, Michigan only (2012 through early 2015 version)

 

As interest in this model grew nationwide, the staff at Don’t Move Firewood approached the SEMIRCD to propose a new version of firewood scout that could expand to include other geographies that were calling out for a similar resource. With support from both the Forest Health Protection Program of The Nature Conservancy, and the Tennessee Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, a small Firewood Scout working group was formed in 2014 and has provided essential resources to expand the site to a national level. Three states – California, Tennessee, and Wisconsin – have already been identified as pilot states for the newly-redesigned site and will be included in Firewood Scout in advance of the summer recreational season. Additional partner states will be recruited later in the year via the following general criteria: willingness to participate, ability to commit in-state staff time for startup and database management time, presence of a central body to garner support from multiple parties (i.e. state invasives species council or similar stakeholder group), and demonstrated long term commitment in curbing the movement of forest pests via the firewood vector in that state.

 

image: Firewood Scout front page, National version (launching February 2015!)

 

For more information about Firewood Scout, please contact Jessica Simons, with the Southeast Michigan RC&D Council at 517-851-2372 or jessica.simons@semircd.org.

Guest blog by Rob Trickel, North Carolina Forest Service, Forest Health Branch Head

 

Thousands of visitors to the North Carolina State Fair became walking billboards for the North Carolina Forest Service Don’t Move Firewood campaign this fall.  Each visitor to the Fair's Forest was given the opportunity to answer a scavenger hunt type quiz in the Forest Service’s tent; once they answered all the questions they received a red drawstring backpack with a “don’t move firewood” message on the back.

“As folks return home and use the backpack, they are spreading our Don’t Move Firewood message,” said Sara Thompson, Forest Health Specialist.  “In some cases these bags will travel across the state much like firewood does. The difference is there are no invasive pests in the bags like there could be with firewood.”

According to Thompson, the purpose of the quiz was to get people engaged and actively looking at the exhibits, where all the answers could be found.  While most of questions were related to forest health, there were a few thrown in to cover other programs offered through the N.C. Forest Service.

The quiz was given to individuals, families and small groups, some of whom worked together to get all the answers. Regardless of how many people it took to find the answers, everyone in the family or group who participated won a backpack if they wanted one.  Once the quiz was completed, they were turned in to a ranger who reviewed the answers and took the opportunity to have a teachable moment and speak with the participants before giving out the backpack.  The overwhelming majority of those that participated liked the quiz and said they learned a lot.  Many commented that they would have never guessed that firewood movement could have such consequences.  The N.C. Forest Service gave out approximately 6,000 backpacks during the 10 days of the fair.  Many of these backpacks, or walking billboards, spread to the message to an even larger audience of fairgoers throughout the mid-way.

The N.C. Forest Service decided to change the exhibits in the tent this year in the hopes of motivating visitors to be more engaged. 

“In past few years, people just walk through the forestry exhibit and maybe read a few items that catch their attention,” said Rob Trickel, N.C. Forest Service Forest Health Branch Head.  “The only ones who would really engage us were the ones who wanted to tell us a story about their land or ask a question about why their trees were dying.  This year, people were engaged, talked to us, asked questions—it was more fun than usual because we were busy all of the time.” 

Trickel reports that on one Saturday there were close to 30 people working in groups or individually on the “scavenger hunt” at the same time several times during the day—sometimes lined up 3 deep at a table or poster reading information. The popularity of this year’s program has prompted the N.C. Forest Service to consider having two “levels” of quiz’s next year, one similar in complexity to this year’s for most people and one very simple for younger kids or parents with small children.

 

Did you know that 20% of US residents identify themselves as a birdwatcher, bird lover, or birder? That’s a LOT of binocular wielding citizen scientists! Does that include… YOU?

Here at Don’t Move Firewood, we’d like to invite all the birdwatchers that participate in the Christmas Bird Count, Great Backyard Bird Count, or just everyday birding adventures, to take a few moments to inspect the trees that their birds depend on for signs of forest pests. The easiest thing to do is to look around for holes in trees- and we’ve made a special handout called the Birdwatcher’s Guide to Holes in Trees for just that purpose. Download the handout, read through it, and familiarize yourself with the three basic types of holes in trees- holes made by typical bird foraging, holes made by birds foraging on invasive insects, and holes made by the invasive insects themselves.

BUT WAIT! Are you a forest health professional?  Multiply your impact by reaching out to your local Audubon Society (or other birdwatching group) representative to get Holes in Trees handouts to each birder that they know! You can either choose to print out physical copies and provide them, or just email the PDF to various birding listservers. You are responsible for contacting and educating your local bird groups- and remember, they are usually volunteers, so please be respectful of their time and desire to help (or a lack thereof!).

Good luck, and keep an eye out for Holes In Trees!

 

Photo of emerald ash borer exit hole and woodpecker foraging hole, credit D. Cappaert

Guest blog by Kevin Turner, Goldspotted Oak Borer Program Coordinator, University of California Riverside

 

In the spring of 2014, the California Firewood Task Force was able to offer “year-end funds” to the Goldspotted Oak Borer (GSOB) Outreach Committee for a much awaited roadside sign project in Southern California.  Our multi-agency committee had conceived of the idea of using roadside signs to warn the populace about the danger of moving GSOB-infested firewood, particularly in light of the fact that there was no prospect of an oak firewood quarantine being established.   A big surge in GSOB-caused mortality in San Diego County combined with the first discovery of GSOB in Riverside County increased the urgency of getting signs installed.

 

Sign at Highway 74 in route to Idyllwild – San Bernardino National Forest, California

 

With funding in hand, we set about coming up with a plan for determining sign design, placement locations, permitting requirements, procurement process, and sign installation. The Don’t Move Firewood campaign is well branded in California and nationally, so the committee felt that continuing the branding made sense. The Nature Conservancy’s Don’t Move Firewood campaign shared samples of sign designs being used in other states and offered the services of their graphic designer to help us with our customized design- at no charge!  As you can see, our design highlights GSOB and features a white background to minimize fading in the strong California sun.

 

For sign locations, Cuyamaca State Park offered to place one sign on Highway 79 in the heart of GSOB country, and another at Mount Palomar, an area immediately at risk to GSOB.  The Descanso Ranger District of the Cleveland National Forest identified three high-use recreation facilities where the signs would be effective.  The City of San Diego Parks Department placed a sign at their Mission Trails facility which in July identified its first GSOB tree.  CAL FIRE in San Diego is installing a 4’x8’ sign on one of their existing fire prevention sign locations.  Finally, the Riverside County Mountain Area Safety Task Force utilized and existing San Bernardino National Forest sign location on Highway 74 between the city of Hemet and Idyllwild.  Each agency that received a sign was responsible for pursuing whatever permitting or permission process was required.

 

Sign at Sunrise Highway in the Cleveland National Forest, California

 

A number of CAL FIRE Conservation camps produce “camp products” which include producing signs.  We selected Norco Camp in Riverside County for this project because it was local and had the ability to utilize computer graphics for producing signs in custom sizes.  Norco also built nice redwood sign frames for some sign locations without existing frames. When the signs were completed, CAL FIRE Riverside Unit/Riverside County Fire Department offered the use of their hook-lift truck and a driver to deliver the signs to various locations.

 

Things to consider if you are planning a future roadside sign project:

 

• Using a custom design produced by the Don't Move Firewood campaign allows your project to immediately be part of a well recognized national campaign- and the designs are done at no cost to your project.
• Signs placed at turnouts, vista points, entry kiosks etc. can contain more detailed information than signs on high-speed sections of roadway where vehicle occupants have a few seconds to view.
• Try to place signs on sections of roadway where drivers are not having to cope with merging, passing, high-speed cornering or other functions of driving that require their full attention.
• Signs at locations where people pull over, stop, or have to drive at a slower rate of speed offer the best opportunity for observation.
• Signs made of decals placed onto aluminum metal backings allow for changing the message or graphics periodically.  However, signs produced with other materials and technologies may have an appeal.
• Check with the local regulatory agency to insure you are complying with signage laws.
• Sign designs can utilize frames on which signs are mounted or frameless (signs attach directly to posts with no frame.
• Consider rotating the signs with other messages; people become oblivious if they travel the same section of road, but a change catches their eye.
• Produce the largest size possible on existing sign boards.
• If using an existing sign frame, make sure to check out its condition and take appropriate replacement parts for worn components.

 

Many thanks to the agencies, groups and individuals that contributed to making this a successful team effort!

 

 

For questions regarding this project, please contact Kevin Turner, Goldspotted Oak Borer Program Coordinator, University of California Riverside