BOONE LEDGE – Vast amounts of ash trees in Kentucky are dead, and many more continue to die every year. It’s not because of logging or coal mining or any other industry. This mass killing is caused by a tiny, green bug known as the emerald ash borer, and its next area of concentration could be eastern Kentucky.

That’s why the University of Kentucky Entomology Department, in coordination with the Kentucky Division of Forestry, has started hanging purple emerald ash borer (EAB) traps in trees in Perry County. They are trying to determine whether or not the tiny beetles have made their way into the eastern part of the state, said Kentucky Division of Forestry Forest Health Specialist Jody Thompson.

Thompson said the emerald ash borer was first identified in the United States in 2002 in Detroit where it was brought into the country accidentally.

Ever since that time, it has been killing ash trees across the eastern United States. The EAB was first discovered and confirmed in Kentucky last year.

According to the University of Kentucky emerald ash borer Website, EAB larvae feed on ash trees’ water and nutrient conducting tissue, reducing the flow of both water and nutrients to the canopy of the tree, which will eventually kill it.

The female beetles usually lay their eggs in distressed trees, but not always.

“The emerald ash borer doesn’t care how well the trees are doing,” Thompson said. He said the beetle will infest healthy trees at the same rate it infests unhealthy ones.

Thompson said the purple EAB traps attract the beetle because of their color, and said they are being hung in Perry County now to determine whether or not the beetle has moved into the county.

The traps are used to monitor the spread of the EAB, not to capture them and stop an infestation, and Thompson said this is important to remember.

He said ash trees die for various reasons, including drought; but if entomologists know ash borers are in the area, they will be able to pinpoint the cause of ash tree death.

Also, if the EABs are found in an area, forestry officials will be able to help people properly defend their ash trees against the tiny beetle, Thompson said.

He said the threat of this beetle should not be underestimated. It moves quickly and can infest all species of ash trees.

“When the emerald ash borer gets into an area, ash trees start dying,” Thompson said. He said this death would be seen within one year depending upon how many ash borers are in the area and the health of the trees at the time of infestation.

He also said the belief is that the EAB has been in Kentucky for at least three years, and has made its way into several counties. The hardest hit area of Kentucky, though, is the boarder between Shelby and Franklin Counties.

Ash trees are important to both the ecology and the economy of Kentucky, Thompson said. Not only are the trees used to make timber, but they are also a habitat tree that supports various other forms of plant and animal life, he said.

If a high number of ash trees die in one place, the canopy will be opened, allowing a sudden influx of life to hit the forest floor, Thompson said. This sudden influx could create an advantage for invasive exotic plant species to move into that area, which will adversely affect the current habitat.

“(The death of ash trees) would be a changing component of those ecosystems,” Thompson said.

He said the loss of ash trees would also have a negative effect on urban areas where many ash trees have been planted and are growing.

Dying ash trees would create hazardous trees in urban areas where the trees are close to homes and businesses because of their potential to fall onto those structures, Thompson said.

The emerald ash borer can be added to the list of recent invasive insect species that have moved into Kentucky, like the wooly adelgid, which invests the eastern hemlock and eventually kills it.

Thompson said that even though the wooly adelgid has been more “high-profile” than the emerald ash borer in recent years, the ash borer needs to remain in people’s minds.

“We are confident that over time, the emerald ash borer will continue to spread and kill ash trees,” Thompson said.

He added that people need to become educated about how to prevent its range from spreading.

Probably the best way to prevent the spread of the EAB is not transferring firewood from place to place, Thompson said, because the EAB larvae are under the bark inside the tree. When transferred, larvae could become mature and fly out of the firewood to living ash trees in the vicinity.

He said there is quarantine in Kentucky now, to prevent the transfer of materials that might have EAB on or in them from county to county.

The spread of the emerald ash borer needs to be prevented somehow, Thompson said, or else more ash trees will die.

“(The EAB) is so quick and so aggressive,” he said, “Its impact is very devastating and very real. It’s the most dynamic pest we have right now.”