Mr Quérée attempts to prevent the felling of the second oak. Picture by Tony Pike (00733116)
A FORMER politician today failed to prevent the felling of two trees in the People’s Park which had become infested with a caterpillar that ‘posed a threat to public health’.
Nigel Quérée, a former Senator and Planning and Environment Committee president, arrived on the scene after one of the Turkey oaks had been cut down.
He managed to halt work temporarily on felling the second oak after he went past the barriers and ‘hugged’ the tree, but it was eventually felled at Mr Quérée was persuaded to walk away.
The decision to cut the trees down was taken after the Environment Department declared the situation ‘extremely serious’ and said that the creatures posed a threat to public health.
Both trees were infested with oak processionary moth larvae, which can cause intensely itchy or painful skin rashes if touched. The caterpillars feed on the foliage of many species of oaks.
Article posted on 3rd July, 2009 - 2.58pm
19 Article Comments
I am confused do we now go round the island and iradicate stinging nettles, wasps and bees incase we get stung and receive painful itchy skin? Or, are these critters deadly?!
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This is the biggest overkill ‘tosh’ I have seen in a long time from the HazMat full suiting to the felling of the trees.
The easy way to treat these is ,yes cordon the area off and place a collecting material below but here is the difference, and I know because I have done this a number of times.
Once the public have been excluded to as safe distance spray the webbing that contains the majority of the caterpillars, with an approved insecticide for the purpose such as alphacypermethrin and add a generous component of spreader (a type of detergent), a narrow lance spray a pair of stabilised stepladders and 20 minutes would treat each tree totally.
Most caterpillars fall from the tree as the detergent breaks up the webbing, those left can be dislodged by a pressurised soapy water spray (perhaps a motorised powerwasher for instance.
To collect the debris old sheets or commercially available lint matting which comes in 3m wide runs and is very cheap can be spread underneath, this collects the moisture and debris and after careful checking that all have been dislodged , can be rolled up put into a trailer and sent to Bellozanne.
The trees might be slightly damaged but will soon recover.
I’m surprised they haven’t dug the roots out as yet using an armoured JCB with NBC survivabilty!!
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Typical knee jerk reaction from unqualified people who enjoy the excuse to bring out the chainsaws, cordon off an area and generally feel important.
So the answer to any pest problem is to cut down the host?
A five minute Google search shows that you don’t cut the tree down, you treat the pest and/or safely remove its nest. The tree itself, although somewhat defoliated, will recover the following year.
Do we look forward to the destruction of, say, St Catherine’s woods shortly ?
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Ok, so I have read up abit out these moths and I can see why they were destroyed. But why did they cut down the trees!? Surely spraying like they do in many other countries would have surfised. Or were they not allowed to climb ladders to do the spraying as it was a health and safety risk??
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St.Catherines Woods.
Don’t worry Spring Heeled Jack ! They won’t do it on my bit of the woods, and the rest of it is only ‘lent’ to TTS to manage. (It’s not public as most people think)
However I have it in writing from the geniuses at Planning that if any tree on my bit falls down etc then I have to ‘replace it with a tree of the same size’ I joke not!!
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We had an infestation of these at my dads house in Spain,bar b que lighter fuel sprayed onto the ball that they weave,a good dousing..two days later ALL gone.this level of incompetence is staggering,can’t have very much to do all day I reckon, whole job took me half hour and no space suit…beam me up Scotty…
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I am 10 years old.
When I heard about the moths I got very up set, that they were going to be killed and that 2 tree would be cut down as well.
Because they made people itch the environment department killed them, what happens if a human hurts another they just get off scot free. but the moths didn’t!!
What happens if they go on more trees is environment department going to cut down all the trees jersey.
THERE MUST HAVE BEEN ANOTHER WAY!!!
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March nose to tail who does that remind you of ???? If I have an infected toe should I have my foot cut off ????
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Am i reading this right, in this day and age with all the insecticide that is available they cut down two oak trees. is it the 1st of April already!!!
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The Right-Wingers View:
for once (!!!!!!!) the states have been pro-active in containing this
yet still you all bemoan
the oak procesionnary larvae are notoriously difficult to kill and if this measure had not been taken then a month from now we’d possibly be cutting down the whole of the park in a vain effort to control it’s ‘procession’ (pardon the pun)
the destruction of two beautiful oak trees (right otside my bedroom window just for the record) is of great sadness to me, yet the necessity negates any tree-hugging counter-argument
For once, I applaud the states for their foresight in this unfortunate yet necessary intervention
Sorry but a lot of the comments above just see “caterpillars” and assume they are cute, fluffy and harmless, and start quoting “overkill!!”; you obviously have access to the internet so look up just how much damage these things can do, my daughter likes to play in Peoples Park and for one thank the States and Scott Meadows for taking a pro-active stance.
Shame they didn’t do that with the immigrants etc etc but that’s a topic for another thread!
Tobias
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Unfortunately this absolute overkill response from the Environment Dept and Scott Meadows in particular is very typical of the ‘not-wanting-to-be-sued’ society we live in!
This disgraceful act has nothing to do with the health of the tree (which were killed by the Environment Dept not by the caterpillars!) nor i would argue about the publics health but more to do with the fact that someone may get a reaction to the caterpillar hairs and sue the hell out of the States for failing to do anything about it.
As has been stated there is no need to kill the affected trees – it does seem an odd way to help the tree to survive by cutting it down!! – and only nest removal is required as stipulated by all leading UK agencies.
The people responsible for this eco-destruction in the Environment Dept and Plant Health in particular should really question whether they are in the right job!
And well done to Nigel Queree for trying to do something to stop this criminal act that someone should be held accountable for.
We need far more respect and understanding here in Jersey for the natural world rather than knee-jerk reactions that only serve to teach the public that the best way of dealing with nature is with a chainsaw and protection suits!
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What a load of old tosh!!!Well i do hope that they will be replaced with some new trees. Who,s pathetic idea was it to fell them in the first place? Name and shame that person!!
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Let’s not pull our punches here, whoever sanctioned this should be sacked…no excuses no pitiful fawning that it was all in the public good.
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I agree that it’s all for litigation purposes. If a kid gets hurt parents demand all sorts of action rather than realising that’s what happens in life sometimes.
It doesn’t surprise me though, have you been at any Jersey cafes recently? The public honestly seem to think the staff are to blame for anything wasps or seagulls do! A kid gets stung and the staff are shouted at, a seagull nicks someone’s food (cause the idiot left it alone) and the business are expected to replace it for free!
We, the public, are the problem, we need to change our attitude and accept that sometimes things happen, and we need to take more care of ourselves and stop finding others to blame.
If these staff were so genius that they could command other species I strongly suspect they would be snapped up to work in biological sciences!
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Leah Holmes – what does this have to do with cafes and seagulls and staff responsibilities? 2 trees in a park is the story here.
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Goodness Darren, you’re really on at me tonight
I was emphasising a point someone else had raised about it being us as humans and our necessity to blame or to press forward with litigation that is the real problem. Maybe you didn’t read the full article or witness the earlier hoo haa surrounding the trees.
In case you hadn’t noticed articles raise many points, and this one raises the behaviour of the public NOT just the behaviour of the two trees! If it was actually just about the two trees there would be no story after all.
Does that keep you happy?
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Thankyou Leah Holmes, articles raise many points and some people choose to go off on tangents and get on their soapbox about anything they deem as relevant to any story.
I maintain my original comment that this story is about 2 trees, a man hugging one of them, an infestation of caterpillars and some States sanctioned chainsaw action. Thankyou and goodnight.
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I’d better shoot my dog, its got fleas
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Darren, you can maintain your point as much as you want, but if you don’t go off at others who raised the human side of the story, and you didn’t as far as I can see then your point is clearly moot.
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