From the Longmont Times Call:
Beetles that eat trees are the good guys in the fight to save water and native plants in western Colorado. With the help of volunteers, Mesa County has released 2,500 beetles on an island in the Colorado River in Grand Junction. Their job is to eat the leaves of the tamarisk, a nonnative tree that can consume 200 gallons of water a day.
More coverage from the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel (Le Roy Standish):
“This is the first ever” release of beetles by the county’s division of pest management, Sirota said early Wednesday. She and several volunteers from the Tamarisk Coalition took the beetles, 2,500 of them supplied by the Palisade Insectary, and released them on South Watson Island, at the end of Seventh Street in the Colorado River. “You just kind of shake them out on the tamarisk,” she said.
More Coyote Gulch invasive species coverage here.