By Patricia Breakey
Creeping masses of forest tent caterpillars are moving through the village of Walton stripping trees, swarming over buildings and sending people scurrying for cover.
"It's like a bad horror movie," Scott VanTyle said. "The Attack of the Tent Caterpillar."
Caterpillars hatched in the large maple trees on Townsend Street near Bear Spring Realty's Walton office where VanTyle works. Sheets of silky strands left behind by the voracious caterpillars now cover the leafless trees.
"They were all over our building," VanTyle said Friday. "We have been spraying and power washing to get rid of them. They were swarming on a shed out in back and now it is covered with webbing.
"It's much worse this year than last year," VanTyle said. "They pounded us pretty bad."
Kim Alvarez, who lives at 29 Liberty St. in Walton, said the caterpillars obscured her deck and covered her garage last week, but now have begun to thin out.
"They were in every nook and cranny," Alvarez said Friday. "You could hear them in the trees and now there are little bits of leaves falling to the ground when the wind blows.
"I was out trying to clean my pool and I heard a noise behind me," Alvarez said. "I turned around and realized it was the caterpillars crunching.
"I couldn't go out my door. They were crawling on the screens, doorsills and up the side of the house," she said.
"They have been stressing me out. I have been shut in my house with the shades pulled so I don't have to look at them," said Paul Trotta, a regional forester with the state Department of Environmental Conservation in Stamford. He said the outbreak of caterpillars throughout the area is a continuation of a cycle that began two years ago.
The large number of caterpillars in area villages may be linked to bright lights, Trotta said.
The caterpillars evolve into moths, which are attracted to lights. The moths then lay their eggs near those lights and when the caterpillars hatch the next year, they feed on nearby trees.
"If you don't want to have caterpillars next year, turn off your lights when the moths appear," Trotta said.
Trotta said the last big forest tent caterpillar infestation occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but added that the recent outbreak isn't behaving as expected. He said the population began to collapse in Schoharie and Otsego counties but is now peaking again in Delaware County.
The caterpillar is a native insect to this area and the population density grows in cycles that span decades. When the caterpillar population peaks, the number of natural predators, including the big black flies, increases and causes the collapse of the outbreak.
Dominic Morales, State University College of Technology at Delhi Dean of Applied Science and Recreation, said that as the caterpillars grow, they go through four instar stages in which they shed their exoskeleton to enable them to grow.
Morales said the caterpillars feed on leaves in their smaller stages and by the time they have reached a larger size, have stopped feeding and are looking for a place to build their cocoons, from which they will emerge as moths.
Morales said no one is sure why the caterpillars seem to be attracted to buildings, but he said it may be the instinct to look for a place to attach the cocoons.
Tent forest caterpillar population moves in waves across the country, he said, beginning in the East and moving to the Midwest. He said the moths tend to lay their eggs in healthy forests, rather than remaining in the defoliated areas.
Morales said the Delhi area suffered heavy defoliation last year, so he is not surprised that Walton is getting hit harder this year.
Morales and Trotta said the caterpillars should be disappearing within the next two to three weeks.
The DEC doesn't spray to get rid of the caterpillars, Trotta said. He said people may spray on their own or hire companies to spray for them.
Several pesticides are available to eliminate the pests, Trotta said, but a bacterial pesticide, Bt, is the most recommended.
"They're a nuisance and then they are followed by the flies, which are almost a bigger nuisance," Trotta said. "But they will all disappear quickly."
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Patricia Breakey can be reached at 746-2894 or at stardelhi@stny.rr.com.
