Talk:Hemlock woolly adelgid

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[edit] Disappearance of the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid

I just got back from a week spent in the West Virginia highlands around the Cheat River headwaters as well as the South Branch Potomac (Smoke Hole) area. The woolly adelgid was in this area for at least two years and rapidly defoliating the hemlocks in most areas. I was expecting near complete mortality, as had occurred in the areas where it first appeared, like the Virginia Blue Ridge. However, this trip as well as earlier trips to other parts of the central Appalachians seems to confirm that, over the past year or two, the woolly adelgid seem to have vanished, seemingly simultaneously, over a large large area. Most hemlocks are partly defoliated, but surviving in the areas where the infestation arrived later. The isolated, usually small, surviving trees in earlier infested areas are adelgid-free as well.

Anyone know the cause of this fortunate demise of the Hemlock woolly adelgid?

PJD 19 August 2007