Why Washington State Officials Want You to Leave These Odd Bags Alone

I've started seeing these weird bags popping up all around the Tri-Cities, and I didn't realize what these bags mean until I dug a little further into their usage.

WA State’s Weird-Looking Bug Bags Have a Big Job—Here’s the Reason Behind Them

I was walking my dogs this weekend in Columbia Park in Kennewick and saw a bunch of these bags on poles around the park. It got me thinking, there has to be a purpose for these bags, and yep, I was right, and you'll want to leave them alone if you spot them.

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So what do these bags do?

These bags aren’t trash. They are early-detection traps set by the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) to monitor for the invasive Japanese beetle, recently found in Pasco and now under quarantine in Benton and Yakima counties

Japanese beetles can be voracious pests, attacking over 300 types of plants, ornamentals, and crops. These bags use floral scents and beetle pheromones to lure them in; once inside, the beetles can’t escape and eventually perish

The bags I saw at the park had a little pellet inside them, but I didn't see any captured Japanese beetles - at least not yet!

Each year, WSDA deploys thousands of these traps to detect even small infestations before they can spread further.

The best thing you can do is leave the bags alone and let them do their job. I snapped a picture, but that was as close as I got to the bag. You now know what these bags are doing and why you've spotted them all over the Tri-Cities recently.

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