Found Gypsy Moth, what to do?

We found a gypsy moth and her egg sac this evening. My question is: What now? I understand these are an invasive species that have the potential of decimating large areas of forests, so do I need to report it? If so, which agency? I'm concerned that if there is an actual infestation in the area, it would have a very negative impact in the reservation.

Good catch. Rutgers Extension has some great information. They might appreciate you contacting them as well -- they've been happy to collect stink bugs in the past! http://www.state.nj.us/agriculture/divisions/pi/pdf/RCEGMfactsheet.pdf

good advice, act quickly. thanks for reporting it.

IIRC gyspy moths have been infesting this area of NJ for the past 40 years or so. I've certainly seen plenty of gypsy moth caterpillars around here.

They seem to be active in waves... a few years you hardly see them at all, but other years, there are so many they strip most of the foliage from the trees. I can remember back in the 70s driving along the Northern Parkway on Long Island and seeing hardly any leaves on the trees in midsummer. It was awful.

They build to large populations some years............and then a virus that they carry begins to affect them and they practically disappear for a few years.

Pretty funny the actual advice is to burn that hideous thing with fire.

My dad used to wrap our trees with some kind of thingee to keep the caterpillars off. My hatred of those things was so intense and automatic that I was once walking with a colleague and went 6 feet out of my way to squish a gypsy moth caterpillar. She wasn't from Massachusetts so I had a heck of a time explaining why I'd gone out of my way to murder a worm.

RobB, my Dad used to do the same thing. He also painted all the eggs with creosote! The trees were pretty darn ugly some years. And we hated them, too. Horrible things.

Back in 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted in Washington state. It was a big eruption, blowing off the top of the volcano and spewing tremendous amounts of volcanic ash into the atmosphere. We lived in Putnam County, NY and noticed that the cars and the driveway were covered in black specks, almost like a sandy gravel. My Dad posited that it was ash from the volcano, 3,000 miles away. Seemed plausible.

A couple of weeks later we learned that it was actually ***** from the Gypsy Moth caterpillars, who were decimating the leaves on the trees and depositing the waste on the cars...

Not much you can do about this.

I remember an infestation when I was a kid. You could hear the crunching of the leaves on all the trees as the caterpillars ate. My father would enlist us to remove and kill the caterpillars from the tree trunks. We had some kind of wrap that went around the tree trunks to keep them from going up to the branches. It was a mess.

Burn that one and put out a couple of feeders.

http://migarden.msu.edu/uploads/files/e2700.pdf

"Many birds do not like to feed on large, hairy gypsy
moth caterpillars, but other species seem to relish them!
Yellow-billed and black-billed cuckoos, blue jays, orioles
and rufous-sided towhees are among the species that
feed on gypsy moth caterpillars. Some birds, such as the
black-capped chickadee, will also feed on egg masses
and can sometimes cause substantial egg mortality."

Thanks everyone. We've destroyed the eggs, but I can't bring myself to burn her. My kids have it in their bug catcher (where she is still laying more eggs) until they get bored with it and then my husband can deal with it. I also have an email out to Rutgers Extension, will see what they have to say.

Don't let them sell you driveway resurfacing or automotive body repair work! Oh gypsy MOTHS sorry...