BANGOR DAILY NEWS • June 30, 2021
A team of researchers at the University of Maine might have found a way to prevent outbreaks in the future by tricking the moths with their own sense of smell. “This method involves saturating the air with the female pheromone so the males can no longer find the females within that area,” said Angela Mech, an assistant professor of forest ecology at the University of Maine. “They get confused in the air, so to speak, and with no mating, no egg masses are laid for the following year, causing the population to decline.” The browntail moth outbreak this summer has been worse than it has been in over a century.