Watch for aerial spraying in Montague for spongy moths

MONTAGUE - A low-flying airplane will be over areas of the township early Wednesday morning spraying for what are now known as spongy moth caterpillars.

The areas are to receive a liquid spray over wooded areas. The spray, which contains a type of fungus, dries on the vegetation and when eaten by the caterpillars, disrupts their digestion and they die.

Spongy is the new name for what were once called "gypsy moths." The new name comes from a translation of a French name based on the destructive forest pest's sponge-like egg masses.

Municipal Clerk and Administrator Dana Klinger said the spray company is contracted by the state Department of Agriculture and will be spraying early in the morning before school children are outside waiting for the bus. In early morning, there is usually less wind, so the spray can be better directed at the targeted woodlands.

Spongy moth history

Unlike most invasive insect pests, biologists know where and how the spongy moth was brought to North America. In the 1860s, the first caterpillars were imported in the hopes of developing an American silk industry, both because the Civil War had disrupted the cotton industry and disease had hit the traditional silk moth.

Late in that decade, one of the researchers received a shipment of possible "silk" moths from France and some of the insect's eggs got out of the laboratory.

Since then, the moth has spread and found a wide range of trees in the northeastern part of the country to their liking.

Control efforts using chemicals were sometimes successful in halting the spread of the insects, but those chemicals, such as DDT, created ill effects in other species as well.

Entomologists discovered that the maimaiga fungus was an effective natural weapon against the spongy moth and has been used over the past nearly decade as a non-chemical means of controlling the insect's population.

In addition to Wednesday's scheduled spraying in Montague, there are some areas which will need a second treatment. On Tuesday, there was aerial spraying of selected areas of High Point State Park and Stokes Forest.

State-owned land in the Ringwood area of Passaic is also scheduled to get aerial treatment.

This article originally appeared on New Jersey Herald: Montague NJ to see aerial spraying for spongy 'gypsy' moths