Lanternflies aren’t going away soon. The little pests descend on Cleveland at the end of summer nest and reproduce in parks at other times of the year. Which is why the Cleveland Metroparks team called in the dogs.
Invasive spotted lanternflies within the parks lack natural predators, allowing them to rapidly build an overwhelming population size. These spotted lanternflies negatively affect the agriculture industry and excrete sticky honeydew, which attracts wasps, bees and creates a mess in the parks.
To battle the overpopulated lanternflies, Cleveland Metroparks worked with a very talented team of trained lanternfly detectives. These specially trained detectives are four dogs, and they just finished up their first season of volunteering to help the Cleveland Metroparks sniff out lanternfly egg masses.
The volunteer team is made up of Argent, the German Shepherd; Bronco, the Cardigan Welsh Corgi; Juno, the black Lab; Rio, an Australian Shepherd mix; and their handlers. The dogs were trained through a program at Virginia Tech.
“Not every dog can just go out and find spotted lanternfly egg masses; there was a certain amount of skill and expertise, and you had to qualify by passing certain field tests in order to be considered a spotted lanternfly egg mass detective,” says Connie Hausman, Metroparks Senior Conservation Science Manager.
Hausman found out about the Virginia Tech dog training at a spotted lanternfly research meeting organized by the US Department of Agriculture.
“There was a poster there about the training of these dog detectives and I thought ‘oh that's really kind of cool’ and then just a few weeks later I got an email with one of the qualifying teams. So it worked out really, really well,” she says.
The team went out around a dozen times between the middle of December through the middle of May. The goal was for the dogs to sniff out the egg masses so that they could be removed before May, when they hatch. They went to several Cleveland Metroparks reservations and were able to find almost 3,500 egg masses. Each egg mass contains about 30-50 eggs, so the dogs were able to reduce the population by almost 175,000.
“The team of dogs that I have, I think they are all very interested in doing more next year, which is great,” says Hausman. “I would be happy to have more dogs join the teams, I don’t do any of that training, though. If qualifying dogs and handlers and their teams become spotted lanternfly egg mass qualifiers, I would be happy to recruit as volunteers to be able to help work in the park system.”
Cleveland Metroparks is hosting an event called the Big Squish on Aug. 23. The Cleveland Metroparks natural resources team and outdoor experiences team will be in a couple of different locations in the parks to educate the public about the spotted lanternfly and “the importance of squish it when you find it.” There will be a meet-and-greet with some of the dogs and dog handlers, where they will talk more about the program.
For more updates about Cleveland, sign up for our Cleveland Magazine Daily newsletter, delivered to your inbox six times a week.
Cleveland Magazine is also available in print, publishing 12 times a year with immersive features, helpful guides and beautiful photography and design.
