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The middle of the day is the worst. “Especially in the afternoon,” Bailey Lombardo said. “There are a lot of them in the afternoon.” That’s when the hemlock woolly adelgid does the most damage. That’s when the ever-expanding population of Asian beetles really goes to work on the hemlock trees in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The adelgid drain the sap from the trees. As a consequence, the population of the fern-like evergreens is declining at an alarming rate. Essential to cooling the park’s mountain streams, loss of the hemlock trees would have damaging, long-term ecological consequences. Many of the fish native to the streams would not survive. Full story »