Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Carnegie Scientists on the Lookout for Alien Insects

The Tracker did not know this: one of the mandates of the Department of Homeland Security is to prevent introduction of invasive, alien, destructive species. That means more money for entomologists who can help identify and perhaps snuff out infestations of newly imported pests. So reports the Post-Gazett’e Don Hopey. He focusses on workers at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History who are helping set traps and identifying what they catch near seaports, airports, and the border (the pic shows an Asian ambrosia beetle they snared). Nobody, it appears, believes that terrorists might try to unleash new, killer aphids on America’s gardens, but invasive pests are nonetheless damaging to the US economy and therefore are included in recent tightening of border security. The effort broadens programs that the Dept. of Agriculture has run for years. Some 1,800 agricultural specialists have been newly trained for work at US ports of entry, it says here.

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