Bloodhound May Help Find Ash Borer Pest
By Rick Farrant - The Journal Gazette - Fort Wayne, Indiana (June 11, 2004)

Indiana foresters hope one day to enlist a new weapon in the battle against the destructive emerald ash borer: A 5-year-old scent-tracking bloodhound named Sir James Edgar Bond. The slobbering, chestnut-haired pooch, less-formally known as Eddie, was introduced by its owner, Dawn Bale, at an outdoor news conference Thursday at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.

Bale, a 38-year-old junior studying biology and geology at IPFW and also an ash borer surveyor for the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, began tests last year to see whether the bloodhound could detect the odor of the shiny, green beetle. She found that the dog could pick up the borer's scent 80 percent of the time. Her research became part of an independent studies biology project that netted her an "A" and drew the interest of forestry officials trying hurriedly to stop the man-aided march of the borers.

The tiny insects, believed to have been imported from Asia in wood-packing material, were first discovered in 2002 in Detroit, Bale said. Since then, infestations have cropped up in other parts of Michigan and in Indiana and Ohio. In Hicksville, Ohio, more than 3,000 trees had to be destroyed this year; in an area near Fremont in Steuben County, 1,101 trees have been removed, and an undetermined number of trees will have to be eliminated in LaGrange County. Some areas of suspicion are being monitored in Winchester, South Bend and Porter County, said Philip Marshall, DNR forest health specialist.

Sixteen surveyors with the DNR and the U.S. Department of Agriculture began scouring land north of Interstate 70 on Monday looking for infected trees. Larry Axlen, DNR urban forest health specialist, said most of the surveying will be done roadside, but crews will also walk 158 campgrounds, 42 sawmills and some of the more than 2,000 nurseries in northern Indiana through mid-August. Axlen said surveyors can usually spot the presence of borers by D-shaped holes in the bark, a four- to five-inch vertical bark split, or worse, by finding a dead tree. By that time, Axlen said, forestry officials are two to three years behind the infestation spread in a particular area.

Officials are optimistic that Eddie, and perhaps other trained dogs, will be able to detect the borer in healthy-looking trees, thereby catching the infestation spread sooner and reducing the number of trees that have to be killed. Bale said Eddie isn't quite ready to participate in the surveying this year but should be sufficiently trained for next year's efforts. The ultimate goal of foresters goes beyond the work of humans and dogs. They want to find and introduce a parasite or predator that can control the emerald ash borer, bringing a "natural balance" that precludes killing trees, Marshall said. "There are no parasites or predators here that are in China" and therefore the emerald ash borer arrived in the United States "without enemies," he said. "It has free will to do what it wants with the ash trees."