Each week for the past three months Christopher Adams, a professor at Oregon State University, has released thousands of codling into the Columbia Gorge.
When the drab, half-inch nonnative insects lay their eggs inside apples, pears, walnuts or other crops, they wreak havoc.
They cost Washington apple growers more than half a billion dollars.
Adams decided to release the moths.
He's not a terrorist. The insects he has allowed into the wild have been destroyed.
The males and females fly around and mate with wildmoths. You don't get any children because they're sterile.
Adams is an assistant professor at Oregon State University.
The summer release of sterilized moths is one of several ongoing research projects he is directing.
Integrated Pest Management focuses on a stable of techniques to control pests. Natural predator, habitat modification and genetic tinkering are included.
The Hood River area is ahead of most other regions when it comes to these sorts of interventions.
This summer's release of the sterilizable moths is modeled after a project in British Columbia that has been going on for a long time.
Since 1992, the Okanogan Valley has been the site of the Sterile Insect Release Program. The reduction in the moths population has led to a reduction in the amount of pesticides used.
The only rearing facility in the world is the one in the Okanagan-Kootenay area.
He wants to prove that a similar program can work in the Columbia Gorge area.
Adams wants to build a Columbia Gorge rearing facility in the future, one that uses X-rays to stymies moths, instead of using radioactive cobalt.
The original goal of the B.C. project was not feasible.
It's difficult to eradicate insects. They are able to survive. You don't need an apple tree in your backyard. The last population can be yours.
The introduction of a tiny wasp is one of the projects Adams has worked on this summer.
The stinkbug is not native to Asia and can destroy crops.
The samurai wasp is native to the stinkbug's home in the United States. There is a wasp in the United States.
More than 20,000 of the 1- to 2- millimeter-long wasp were released by Adams.
He says that the native range provides 80-90% control of the stink bug.
He says that most orchardists are happy to use non-pesticidal controls.
There have been high-profile and devastating examples of experimental pest management going wrong when playing God with natural systems. The Cane toads entered Australia in 1935.
The toads were brought to control the can beetles. The beetles were ignored, instead decimating other native species.
There are 200 million cane toads in Australia.
Adams says that the failure is burned into the minds of researchers and managers.
He doesn't believe we're at that cavalier stage. We're beyond that if I could equate it to being an 18-year-old and thinking we're bulletproof. There is a lot of work to be done in order to make decisions. No one person makes a decision about whether or not to release something.
Eli Francovich is a writer. His book about wolves returning to the west will be published in April of 2023.
Environmental issues of the Columbia River Basin are the focus of Columbia Insight.
The OSU professor releases destructive was into Columbia Gorge.
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