Minnesota uses creative tactics to track beetles

Although they are unsure how well their new methods work, public officials in Minnesota are entering their fourth summer battling the invasive Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) beetles that threaten the state's nearly one billion ash trees. They have decided to employ a creative and experimental array of strategies to identify and kill them before they become established there.

There's the STUC (Sticky Traps Using Cadavers) approach, where they glue dead EABs to a leaf, then spray a sticky substance that is meant to trap an interested beetle, thus allowing researchers to track their movement. Elsewhere, dogs are being trained to sniff out ash and EAB-infested ash. About 6,500 purple detection traps have been placed in uninfested counties around the state. And 25,000 stingless wasps that lay eggs in EAB larvae and kill them have been released.