What annoys me about the lantern fly is the government and media reaction, treating it like a SyFy channel disaster film.
That's not to deny the damage it caused in the first year that it emerged. But the government and media treated it like the Spanish flu; it was a sign of the apocalypse. Anyone who paid close attention to the bugs saw first that it was easy enough to kill them, and that second, natural predators emerged, that also noted that they are easy to kill. That summer, I observed birds catching them and eating them, and insect predators like wasps catch them and take them back to feed them to their larvae. Anyone with a high school biology class behind him could have predicted that. And the measures to kill them before they grew to adults were applied, like destroying their egg masses, and wrapping adhesive material around tree trunks to catch them as they climbed up. And sure enough, the following summer, there were far fewer of the lantern flies around. And the story died after that.
Ultimately, our media are crap, but they can scare people who don't think skeptically about what the media present.
When I think of our contemporary media-whatever the perceived editorial bent-I always think of John Vernon's great line from "The Outlaw Josey Wales": "Don't pi$$ down my back and tell me it's rainin'!"
Prost!
Brad