Overview of the light brown apple moth problem in California: Threat and response

The light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM) was discovered in California in 2007 through a strange series of events. A retired entomologist found a specimen in a home black light trap and had the identification verified by a friend in Australia where the pest is native. Notification to the California and USDA public officials lead to a extensive detection trapping program to delimit the size of the population. Eventually LBAM was detected in large numbers in Santa Cruz and San Francisco and sparsely over 100 miles of central California coast from Monterey to Marin County. A federal order was issued to quarantine several counties for the pest. A state Interior quarantine was issued to keep the pest from expanding out of these areas. This talk will be an overview of the threat to agricultural industry and to the environment of California and the United States and response efforts to eradicate it.