Agriculture
Secretary Begins Tour to Raise Awareness of Invading
Pests
By Karen Matthews
Associated Press Writer
Mar 21, 2000 - 08:47 PM
NEW YORK (AP) - U.S. Agriculture
Secretary Dan Glickman on Tuesday kicked off a four-day
national tour to raise awareness of invading pests that
can kill native plants and animals with a visit to a
park where the Asian long-horned beetle has felled 24
trees.
Glickman said he was starting in New
York because of the beetle, which has killed 4,400 trees
in the city, and because of West Nile virus, the
mosquito-borne virus that killed seven people in New
York, New Jersey and Connecticut last year and sickened
52 others. Some 5,000 birds also died of the virus.
"Whether it's the beetle or
whether it's the West Nile virus, the culprit that we're
looking at here is species that are not native to the
United States, that come in many different ways,"
Glickman said. "They can wreak havoc on farm and
rural communities, but they can also wreak havoc in
urban areas and they can cause a public health problem
to occur."
Glickman said the West Nile virus has
apparently survived the winter, and with mosquito season
approaching his department has allocated $375,000 in
emergency funds for surveillance and testing of the
virus, primarily in the New York area.
He added that the USDA's Animal and
Plant Health Inspection Service has appointed a
full-time coordinator to work with other federal, state
and local agencies in combating the virus.
The secretary was joined by U.S. Reps.
Carolyn Maloney and Joseph Crowley, New York City
Democrats who touted their efforts to obtain federal
funds to combat the Asian beetle.
Maloney called the beetle, which
entered the United States in wooden Chinese packing
crates and shipments of bonsai trees, "a large,
ugly black bug with white spots on it."
Crowley said he had secured $7 million
in the federal budget for Fiscal Year 2001 to fight the
beetle, a $5 million increase over last year.
"Could we as New Yorkers imagine
a Central Park with no trees?" Crowley asked.
"I daresay it wouldn't be the attraction it is
today."
Maloney, Crowley, Glickman and other
USDA officials then shoveled dirt onto a newly planted
tree in Ruppert Park on the Upper East Side, where
Maloney said the Asian beetle has killed two dozen
trees.
Glickman's tour continues Wednesday in
Miami, where he will visit a lime grove damaged by
citrus canker.
On Thursday he will tour an inspection
facility on the U.S.-Mexican border south of San Diego
and on Friday he will visit the Port of Long Beach, the
nation's busiest cargo container port.
Related Links:
On the Net: USDA's Animal and
Plant Health Inspection Service site: http://www.aphis.usda.gov
Council for Agricultural Science
and Technology site: http://www.cast-science.org
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