How dogs are helping Cleveland Metroparks kill invasive spotted lanternflies

By Clay LePard

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    CLEVELAND (WEWS) — Don’t be fooled by the face of Bronco the Cardigan Welsh corgi: he’s a hunter.

Bronco, along with Rio, Juno and Argent, make up a team of volunteer dogs helping Cleveland Metroparks locate and eliminate egg masses of the invasive spotted lanternfly.

“I don’t want to say I get excited, but I get excited for him that he found one,” Paige Malone, Bronco’s owner, explained. “Unfortunately, when you do find one, usually they’re not alone.”

The dogs were trained to sniff out the egg masses as part of a study with Virginia Tech.

“Our little team has [found] over 2,000 egg masses now,” Ginger Alpine, Argent’s owner, said. “The dogs are really good at finding the things that are a little more hidden, way down low under the trees or even under a picnic table that you might not see.”

As Connie Hausman, senior conversation science manager with Cleveland Metroparks, explains, each egg mass can contain anywhere from 30 to 50 eggs, meaning these dogs have helped prevent 100,000 spotted lanternflies from damaging plants and crops in Northeast Ohio.

The problematic pest that made its way over here from Asia and was first spotted in Ohio in 2020 has seen its population explode since then.

“It’s pretty important [to get this under control,]” Malone said. “Unfortunately, they’re going after fruit trees and crops that really impact us.”

Once an egg mass is located, a volunteer will scrape it off. Egg masses are usually found on the invasive tree known as “tree of heaven,” but volunteers told News 5 they have seen egg masses on everything from maple trees to picnic benches and street signs.

This team will continue hunting for spotted lanternfly egg masses for the next couple of weeks, until they hatch.

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