EAB Found As Part of DEC’s 2012 Trapping Program
The Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) in Tioga County has been confirmed by the USDA Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Joe Martens confirmed today. The EAB was found in a DEC-deployed trap two miles from the Pennsylvania border and six miles from the Chemung County border in the southwestern corner of Tioga County. Chemung County and all of Pennsylvania are under state and Federal EAB quarantine. A single adult EAB was found in one of the thousands of purple detection traps that are placed around the state this summer.
“With this year’s EAB detection trapping season rapidly coming to a close, we are working closely with our sister-agency, the Department of Agriculture and Markets and other stakeholders to examine the information derived from this year’s trapping to determine appropriate quarantine boundaries moving forward,” Commissioner Joe Martens said.
With the confirmation of EAB in Tioga County, New York now has 13 counties where EAB has been found. Most of the infested areas are small and localized, while more than 98 percent of New York’s forests and communities are not yet infested.
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THE ART OF KELLY CHURCH AND CHERISH PARRISH
Kelly Church and Cherish Parrish are a mother and daughter team dedicated to saving the black ash tree and expressing their Anishnaabe tribal heritage through traditional and contemporary arts. They excel at black ash basket-making, birch bark biting, and painting. Based in Michigan, they show their award-winning baskets throughout the United States.
Since the discovery of the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) in 2002, Michigan has lost over 20 million ash trees, and the numbers continue to rise. The entire lower peninsula of Michigan is under a “no ash movement” quarantine, and the EAB continues to spread and infect entire ash lots, eventually killing off once healthy, thriving ash trees.
For hundreds of years, Native Americans of Michigan (Anishnabe) and Natives from all over the North Eastern United States have been using black ash trees, Fraxicus nigra, for basket weaving. These baskets have been used for centuries for utilitarian purposes such as market baskets, berry-picking baskets, fishing creels, baby baskets, laundry baskets, and sewing baskets. Today they are still used in a variety of ways and are also collectible baskets as pieces of art. The EAB is threatening the livelihood of a centuries-old traditional native art form, and we are working together to inform about EAB, learn what can be done to slow the spread, and ways we can preserve black ash basketry for generations to come.
Please visit their website at www.blackash.org.
Photo courtesy of www.blackash.org
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