Federal agricultural workers carrying blow torches moved slowly down the bank of an old oil canal, burning every prickly pear cactus they came across in hope of killing off a cactus-eating pest that's been on a tear across the Gulf Coast and is moving West.
Cactoblastis cactorum, a tan-colored moth from Argentina, has been moving steadily across the Gulf Coast for the past decade. The moth lays its eggs in prickly pear cacti, which its larvae then infest. They'll eat through the pads of the fruit-bearing plant worth hundreds of millions of dollars because of its use in Mexican cooking.
Cactus Canal now marks the western boundary of the moth's new habitat, and federal workers hope to stop it before it gets to Texas and the population explodes with an abundant food supply.
"This is our line in the sand, so to speak," says Joe Bravata, an invasive species specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, or APHIS.
The cactus burning on the remote canal dug more than a half century ago by oilmen in the far-flung Louisiana marsh has support from the U.S. and Mexico. Both countries are contributing about $500,000 a year to kill the moths and save the prickly pear. The cactus is so important in Mexico, it's on the middle of the national flag under the eagle. Known as nopales, prickly pear is farmed on about 205,000 acres in Mexico with a harvest worth about $160 million.
California's harvest, the biggest in the U.S., is worth $24 million a year.
The cactus also has ecological significance. Quails and snakes find cover in prickly pear, as do fungi, reptiles and birds that eat the plant. A good portion of a white-tail deer's diet depends on the cactus, and coyotes and foxes, in bad times, will eat it too.
The moth is seen as a major threat. It arrived at the tip of Florida in
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