A Monarch Butterfly checks out the damage left behind by this year’s plague of Gypsy Moth Caterpillars.The Gypsy Moths has run their course for this year. What promised to be a devastating outbreak fizzled. Aerial spraying combined with a cold wet May and a multitude of songbirds the damage was not nearly as bad as last year. I did not encounter any area where the trees were completely stripped of foliage.
I was concerned about the future of our forest as the outbreak of 2007 stripped thousands of acres here in South Central Pennsylvania. Hopefully we have seen the worst of the Gypsy Moth outbreak with our oak forest spared the destruction we experienced in the 1980’s.
