Operation pest patrol: Invaders at the border?

By Marissa Ortega-Welch

Published December 17, 2018 at 6:27 PM PST

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Customs and Border Protection officers inspect every ship entering the United States for insects that might be hitching a ride. Click the audio player below to listen to the story, while viewing the slideshow.

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Customs and Border Protection Agricultural Specialist Derrick Dumo checks the ship's pantry for Khapra Beetle, a pest that could destroy grain products.

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Officer Dumo reviews the ship's logs and receipts with the chief cook, to make sure that all the food on board wasn't purchased in a country that has fruit flies.

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Asian Gypsy Moths sometimes lay their eggs on ships while they are in port in places like Russia or China. Officer Dumo searches for any egg masses that might have hitched a ride across the Pacific Ocean.

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A preserved specimen of an Asian Gypsy Moth egg mass. Each egg mass can contain hundreds of eggs. If these eggs turn into moths, they could fly ashore to the U.S. and defoliate forests or orchards.

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Every ship entering the U.S. from a foreign port must be inspected by U.S. Customs and Border Protection for insects.

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One of Dumo's co-worker found a bee hive in the hold of a bulker ship. Local pest control had to come remove it. Not all insects hitching a ride on the ship are as big or as obvious as a bee hive.

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Customs and Border Protection officers off-board the bulker ship that's anchored in the middle of the San Francisco Bay.

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Agricultural Inspector Ryan McKenna asks every driver entering California if they're carrying any plants or produce that might accidentally be harboring insects.

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The line of cars crossing from Nevada into California today is relentless. McKenna stops and talks to every one, checking to see if the passengers have any produce.

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"This family that I took [the cherries] from - after I told them, 'Hey I gotta take these,' they were throwing them in their mouth and eating as much as they could!" - Leilani Wong, CDFA plant quarantine inspector

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A cherry fruit fly larvae found in a batch of homegrown cherries that agricultural inspectors confiscated from a family driving into California.

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Dr. Matthew Chew of Arizona State University wants us to re-think this idea of 'invasive' insects. "The insect is just an insect," he says. "It didn't introduce itself. It certainly didn't organize an invasion."

Courtesy of Matthew Chew / Cropped

Operation pest patrol, Part I: Customs and Border Protection officers board and inspect every ship that comes into our country's ports.

State inspectors stop drivers and question crossing the California border. These government agents aren’t necessarily checking passports; they’re looking for pests.

Listen to Part II and Part III of the series.

Every ship that enters United States' waters has to be inspected by Customs and Border Protection officers for insects that might be hitching a ride. Agricultural specialists like Derrick Dumo board and search these ships — from the pantry to the deck — for pests that if allowed to accidentally enter the U.S., could decimate our agriculture.

At the California border, our state has an extra line of defense. If you’ve ever driven into the Golden State, you’ve probably been stopped at one of the sixteen agricultural checkpoints run by the California Department of Food and Agriculture. An inspector like Ryan McKenna might ask you if you have any plants or produce in your car — produce that might be infested with insects.

These are the crazy lengths that we go to as a country and a state to keep invasive insects from spreading and destroying our crops. Some scientists, like Dr. Matthew Chew of Arizona State University, want us to re-think this idea of “invasive.” Chew says, it’s not accurate to label a species as invasive or an invader. It makes it seem like we’re blaming the species. When really we humans introduced it. When we ship cargo on boats or airplanes or just move stuff around the globe, insects get moved, too. This is the reality of agricultural trade in our globalized world.

Operation pest patrol: Invaders at the border?

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