W.Va. hemlocks threatened by sap-eating pest - - The Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register

BECKLEY, W.Va. (AP) - West Virginia's eastern hemlock trees are being wiped out by a tiny sap-sucking insect that has already claimed thousands of trees in the eastern United States, a state agriculture official said. The hemlock woolly adelgid, which is similar to an aphid, was first detected in the state in 1992. Since then it has killed thousands of trees, said Karen Kish, a forest entomologist with the West Virginia Department of Agriculture.