Special
Features / May 2007
Not Out of the Woods Yet
 Karen Kish
|
By Pat Lawrence
Karen Kish gets bugged at work all the time. She doesn’t mind. She’s the West Virginia Forest Entomologist, so it’s actually her job description. A gardening enthusiast who loved perennials, Karen majored in Horticulture at WVU. “I thought I’d be working in a greenhouse.” Instead, she met a gifted instructor with a passion for her subject and Karen switched from blooms to bugs. “I took an entomology class because I had to-and I loved it.” Karen signed up for another one. After the second class, Dr. Linda Butler recognized a kindred spirit and offered Karen a Master’s assistantship, so she could pursue a Master’s degree in entomology, the branch of zoology involving insects. She says, “People don’t really think about insects until they’re facing a pest problem. They generally don’t know how important insects are and how much they do, the positive benefits they provide or the devastation they can cause.”
Karen is a daily witness to the impact of disturbances in nature’s delicate balance. “We have native insects but native plants have resistance to them. Natural enemies and diseases keep them in check. But, invading insects from other countries, or just other regions, can be a disaster. The plants have no defenses against them; there are no natural enemies. Sometimes, the outsiders don’t survive-it’s the wrong climate or the wrong kind of plants. But when they do survive, they can be extremely invasive and destructive.”
Karen says it isn’t always people who introduce the pests, “It’s the products. Delivery pallets can harbor wood boring insects and bark beetles. Many insects are found in packing materials. There are laws about fumigation and treatment but there’s not really money available to enforce them. Nursery stock sold from one country to another often involves extra-invasive species, worms or weeds, that can cause major eco-sytem damage.”
Karen interned with the WV Department of Agriculture, which led to her current position. She works with the state’s Forest Health Protection Programs Unit. Their mission includes providing forest insect and disease surveillance and detection programs plus planning and conducting forest pest suppression and abatement programs. Some of Karen’s duties are surveying, delimiting infestations, planning control programs and taking questions from West Virginians about forest insect and disease related problems. Karen forecasts economically important forest insect and disease problems that have critical consequences for the state.
Often she works in tandem with the Forest Pathologist, and many of her projects are part of cooperative formal agreements with the US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, WV Division of Forestry and the WVU Division of Plant and Soil Sciences.
Working alone or as part of each cooperative effort, she tries to keep West Virginia trees from being killed.
Sometimes it must feel like trying to empty the ocean with a spoon.
“The Hemlock Wooly Adelgid is a sap feeding insect, introduced from Asia. It isn’t a pest there, but in the eastern US, it’s caused the death of hundreds of thousands of hemlocks and will probably affect the entire eastern seaboard. Thousands of West Virginia hemlocks have been killed already. There’s lots of research and individual treatments, but that doesn’t help a forest. For the forest, there’s nothing now that can be effective. Hemlocks create a very special shade environment and protective habitat. We stand to lose it completely.”
Forest threats just keep coming this direction. Karen says, “The Emerald Ash Borer was found in Michigan in 2002 after a nursery dealer violated quarantine and sold to a Maryland dealer. It mowed through trees-over 25 million trees are dead already. Stumps and roots keep the insect alive. We’ll soon have decisions to make, because what’s being done is expensive, and isn’t working.” A wood wasp that eats pine is heading south from New York. According to Karen, forest entomologists all across the country have the same issues, “just different insects”.
Monitoring forest pest conditions involves traveling the state, treatments, trapping, visual surveys and the work of 25 permanent field agents around the state. Karen also writes work plans, proposals and progress reports. In community presentations, she spreads the word, “Don’t move firewood! Buy it or cut it when you get there! Firewood is a major route for transporting invasive bugs, like gypsy moth egg masses, ash borers, oak wilts, bark beetles, and things we don’t even know about.”
Karen’s work is seasonal in a way; field work in summer, reports in winter, ordering supplies, hiring and training in spring. Even though she may be looking for killer insects, she says, “A good day is in the field.”
At home, she maintains gardens of native and regional perennials on eighteen wooded acres she shares with her husband and eight month old daughter in Given, WV.
Hopeful despite the never-ending invasions, Karen won’t surrender West Virginia forests without a fight. “A lot of insects we consider harmful are still beneficial in some way. There are products and biological controls on the horizon that will help.” And, she says, “Maybe people will stop moving firewood!”
Copyright © 2007 A Woman's View. All rights reserved.
Top • Home • Subscribe • Advertise • Submit • Distribution • Contact
Support Our Advertisers • Organization Resources • Women Owned Business
Send an Email About This Article