By Morgan Simmons
simmonsm@knoxnews.com
TOWNSEND, Tenn. – Christmas came early to the hemlocks in Cades Cove this week in the form of a horticultural spray that rids the trees of an exotic insect that has spread throughout the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
On Thursday the National Park Service wrapped up its second day of hemlock woolly adelgid treatment in Cades Cove. Since 2002 when it was discovered near Fontana Lake in North Carolina, the tiny Asian insect has decimated the park’s hemlocks, prompting retaliatory measures that includes treating roadside trees with a spray that coats the adelgids with soap and oil and causes them to suffocate.
In addition to Cades Cove, the park’s frontcountry efforts to save the hemlocks includes picnic areas, cemeteries, and campground. A select number of trees are treated in the park’s backcountry, too, but with a systemic insecticide that must be applied by hand.