This is some footage of the thousands of tent caterpillars in Walton, NY (in Delaware County). The video is just of one street, but represents just about every street in the village of Walton.
These caterpillars are so bad, you can't even enjoy a walk around the neighborhood because you'll get stuck in the caterpillar webs and have caterpillars fall on you left and right. And all these leaves that they eat have to come out sometime...yes, that means lots of caterpillar waste (poo). It actually sounds like it's raining in some parts of town because there's so many caterpillars...um...well, you know...pooping. And even the roads and sidewalks are stained with the dead caterpillars and squished poo.
The trees are what suffer the most. Almost every tree in one neighborhood is completely consumed by these caterpillars. No shady trees this summer...
And next year, some of the trees won't come back in the spring. Can this be good for our environment?
But, the caterpillars are slowly dying off, and then we wont have to deal with them...until next year.
