The brown longhorned beetle found in a shipping crate in Baltimore this week (see article here) serves as an excellent reminder that invasive forest pests are not a predictable bunch. Despite regulations on importing crates, the crate was made of non-compliant materials (presumably untreated wood, but the article doesn't actually specify). This is most likely why the beetle was found in the crate, alive and well, ready to attack the trees of Baltimore.

I had a really great lunch with an old friend last week, and we talked a lot about white pine blister rust. If you aren't familiar with it, white pine blister rust is one of the oldest, and most widespread, non-native forest pests in North America. It was introduced just at the dawn of the 1900s, and it is still killing pine trees all over our continent to this day.