As if the District’s trees didn’t have a rough enough go of it, what with the incredibly hot summer we’ve been having — now, the city’s ash trees are apparently under threat from Emerald Ash Borers, an invasive beetle which feasts on ash trees everywhere it spreads.

Yesterday, the United States Department of Agriculture Domestic (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service added the District to an official quarantine list for the tree-munchers, which have killed as many as 100 million ash trees in the United States and Canada since they were accidentally introduced to the North American continent in the 1990s. The bugs — originally hailing from eastern Russia, northern China, Japan, and Korea — have been found in 14 other states and have prompted a movement to Stop the Beetle. Thanks to the quarantine, the transportation of wood products over state lines will be “blocked.” (Of course, we’re curious — will state troopers be setting up wood checkpoints at the entrance to the District to prevent such transport, or what?)

On the bright side: better the beasts we can identify, I guess.

Image courtesy Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources – Forestry Archive.