Green-Wood Cemetery Needs Our Help

There is a dangerous invader threatening the wildlife and habitats of Green-Wood Cemetery. In fact, the situation is potentially so dire, it could eventually affect the agriculture of all of the United States. I am referring to this lovely looking leaf-hopper, the Spotted Lanternfly:

Green-Wood Cemetery, Sweetgum Path - photo by Michelle Talich

This insect could have a devastating affect on New York's forests as well as the agricultural and tourism industries. More information from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is available here. If you encounter one of these insects, you should kill it. You should also report it and submit images, location, date, and any other pertinent observation info (number of individuals, behavior of individials, etc) to the NYS Integrated Pest Management Spotted Lanternfly Public Report. Here is a link. Cornell has a good page of information here.

For Green-Wood Cemetery internally, mapping the observations on iNaturalist is the easiest way for them to keep track of the sightings, their locations, and the progression of spread. Please join a few projects that are important tracking projects:

Green-Wood Cemetery: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/green-wood-cemetery-brooklyn-ny-projects
Spotted Lanternfly predation in the US: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/spotted-lanternfly-predation-in-the-u-s

To reiterate, if you see an adult and the (soon-to-be-seen) egg masses destroy them. Here is a link on how to destroy the egg masses. It's important to note that that adult female Spotted Lanternflies do not discriminate where they deposit there eggs. Egg masses can be found on almost any surface including vehicles! They are very effective hitchhikers! Finally, this website has some excellent advice on how to kill the adults and egg cases.