Weiss, of the rallying cries gathering the forces aligned against lanternflies. “It’s phrased in almost moral terms,” said Mr. Weiss, a former instructor of Buddhist philosophy who lives in Philadelphia, has not crushed a single lanternfly. Last year, a New Jersey woman threw a lanternfly-crushing pub crawl one Pennsylvania man developed an app that tracks users’ kills called Squishr. Authorities in battlegrounds such as New York, New Jersey and in particular, Pennsylvania, the insects’ apparent ground zero, have framed the campaign against the creature as an act of civic duty.Ĭalls to action to civilians to stamp out the invaders- literally - have been enthusiastically met in New York, Brooklyn summer campers engage in lanternfly hunts and the state park preserve on Staten Island hosted a squishathon in 2021. To fight back, state and local officials in infested areas have enlisted their constituents in an anti-lanternfly militia. Several studies on the encroaching invasion have projected that lanternflies could do upwards of hundreds of millions of dollars of damage. It has since swarmed across at least 11 states including New York, growing as an agricultural threat, particularly to grape harvests and fruit trees, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. The gray-and-red-winged planthopper from China first showed up in Pennsylvania in 2014. Still another few think lanternflies are too cute to kill.
Some people are faced with a flurry of lanternflies, despite years of dedicated squishing, and have just given up. Others doubt the threat lanternflies pose or have been repulsed by the glee surrounding lanternfly annihilation. Their reasons differ: Some are vegans who find killing even pests wrong. Weiss is among an emerging group of conscientious objectors to the open-season on the insect. Then he carefully hides it from any would-be assassins. When Lee Weiss, 31, sees a spotted lanternfly - an invasive pest so voracious that it is the target of several officially sanctioned smash-on-sight campaigns - he acts swiftly.