We’re at war and we’re losing.
Sure, everyone is doing their part: stomping, squashing and squishing the enemy on sight. Yet the spotted lantern fly, an invasive insect, continues to eat its way through more than a dozen states and counting along the East Coast and in the Midwest.
For years, officials in states where the lantern flies have taken hold have asked ordinary citizens to crush the bugs, but the country is still ceding ground to the invasive species, whose voracious appetite for plants is causing millions of dollars in damage a year to farms, particularly vineyards.