UMass Amherst Professor to Release New Insect Predators To Protect Endangered Hemlocks from Attack

*** MEDIA ADVISORY ***

Date:      Wednesday, April 27

Time:      3 p.m.

Where:   Walden Pond Visitors Center, Route 126, Concord, Mass.

Joe Elkinton, a professor of environmental conservation at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, will release some predatory silver flies that attack the hemlock woolly adelgid, an invasive insect from Japan that has killed millions of hemlock trees in Massachusetts.

These silver flies are from the Pacific Northwest, where the adelgid exists at low densities and never kills hemlock trees. Research has shown that insect predators, such as these silver flies, keep the adelgid populations in check in that region. By establishing these predators here in Massachusetts, researchers hope to save our hemlock trees.