Mapping
With special infrared mapping, the LGLC has identified locations of hemlocks within the watershed believed to be most at-risk and critical to monitor and protect.
Monitoring
On-the-ground monitoring is the most effective way to detect HWA infestations. Each year LGLC staff and volunteers walk more than 75 miles on protected lands within the watershed to check for signs of HWA.
Following the confirmed infestation of HWA within the watershed in 2020, the LGLC has been working with partner organizations (APIPP, Capital Mohawk PRISM, and DEC) to identify and monitor priority hemlocks throughout the watershed. In addition to monitoring our own preserves, we survey hemlocks on partner-owned public lands as well as several ecologically important private properties.
In 2021, the LGLC joined in a state-wide initiative to engage citizens in efforts to monitor for the invasive pest, hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA). As a result of this Adopt-A-Trailhead program, more than 100 trails were monitored regionally by nearly 400 citizen scientists, all of whom went through training for HWA identification and how to report their findings with iMapInvasives.
Management
LGLC’s trained staff have assisted with the treatment of over 30 acres of infested hemlocks on Dome Island, Shelving Rock and Paradise Bay.
In spring of 2023, HWA was found on LGLC’s Clark Hollow Bay property in the Town of Putnam. Following an HWA Management Plan for the property, chemical treatment at Clark Hollow Bay began in fall of 2023. Under guidance of the New York State Hemlock Initiative, LGLC staff released 2,000 Laricobius nigrinus beetles in early winter, 2023. This release is part of an effort to establish hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA) biological control (bio-control) on the property, which is part of a long-term management plan.
The goal of using a chemical and bio-control two-prong approach is to provide chemical protection to the trees while the bio-controls have time to build numbers and establish populations large enough to keep the HWA population down through natural predation.
Laricobius beetles are native to the Pacific Northwest, and are specialist predators, feeding exclusively on HWA throughout the fall and winter when HWA is in its adult form.
Though these beetles have been released at other protected lands in the Lake George watershed, this release is the first on LGLC-owned land, and the site is the northern most known HWA infestation. The LGLC will continue working with the Hemlock Initiative to monitor and manage the site.