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Posted on Fri, Jun. 03, 2005



Wood crafts from China may harbor ruinous bugs
A branch of the USDA recently suspended importation of certain items.
The concern is two beetles that damage trees.
By Don Oldenburg
Washington Post

It has been more than four years since Mary Gallagher noticed the
small piles of sawdust beneath her imported, carved-wood elephant and
watched, stunned, as tiny beetles scampered from small boreholes into
her Arlington, Va., home.

Gallagher, a travel journalist and consultant, says the incident was
so disturbing that she still checks for a ring of dust around her many
antiques and collection of wooden carvings.

"I still pick things up and wait for those little black bugs to run
out," she says.

Gallagher successfully pressured Pier 1 Imports, the store where she
bought the elephant, to pay for pest-control treatment of her home.
She has since become something of a bellwether for others who find
insects in imported craft products.

"It was such a horrifying experience, not knowing what these bugs
were, what they could do. Would my house be eaten and fall down?" she
says.

When Gallagher heard about the U.S. Department of Agriculture's
recently taking steps to stop certain destructive insects that stow
away in imported products, she sighed with relief - but wondered
whether it would prevent experiences such as hers.

Effective April 1, the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection
Service (APHIS) suspended the importation of processed-wood craft
items from China containing or made from logs, limbs, branches or
twigs larger than one centimeter in diameter with bark intact.

USDA officials are primarily concerned about two species - brown fir
longhorn beetles and Japanese cedar longhorn beetles. Both are related
to the Asian longhorn beetle that arrived in Chicago and New York in
1996 via wooden products, crates and pallets from Asia and has since
done tens of millions of dollars in damage annually to trees.

In the last six months, these beetles were found in several shipments
of artificial Christmas trees (since recalled) that were made in China
from natural tree limbs.

"They attack fir trees, and we don't want to lose our fir trees to
this," says USDA senior import specialist Bill Aley, adding that the
inspection service is increasingly concerned about wood-boring pests
coming into the United States from China via decorative wooden craft
items.

The temporary ban takes the artificial Christmas trees and some other
wooden crafts imported from China off the market.

But Aley says some people who purchased these products and now have
them in their homes or stored in attics may still be housing the bugs.

"There is usually a one-year cycle for these insects," he says. "So if
it is something they bought in January, there is still a possibility
that a larva is in there munching away."

Anyone who owns wooden products made in China, especially artificial
Christmas trees, should inspect them for "pinholes the size of pencil
lead," Aley says. "Also look for what you call 'the sawdust'... which
is bug excrement."

But Aley says the USDA does not regulate the import of products that
might be infested with "secondary pests" such as termites or the
powder-post beetles that were encamped in Gallagher's elephant.

Those insects are native to this country, and the USDA's main concern
is keeping out destructive newcomers "that eat living trees."

Says a disappointed Gallagher, "It's obviously not as fearful as a bad
drug on the market, but it's certainly a very unpleasant experience."


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Information on the ban is available at the Web site of the Animal and
Plant Health Inspection Service. Visit www.aphis.usda.gov and click
Hot Issues.





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