Lately I’ve noticed, as I’m sure many of you have, that the children are very interested in caterpillars. I’ve also been told we had a few tents in Arbutus that needed to be dealt with. Or did they? I didn’t know much about tent caterpillars, so I decided to do a little research. I was curious to see how much damage they could do, and what their tents look like. I learned that they can either do a lot of damage, or no damage, and that they are an important part of our ecosystem.
There is currently a tent caterpillar “outbreak” on the island, so I wanted to find out what that means, and what we can do about it. According to zoologist Judy Myers we usually don’t have to do anything (Dickson, 2023). Fruit trees might not grow much fruit after tent caterpillar activity, so if you’re on a fruit farm you probably want to remove them, but otherwise, they typically don’t do much long-term damage at all (Dickson, 2023). Although in large enough groups they can take the leaves off an entire tree, healthy trees that lose half their leaves will typically survive and grow new leaves by the end of the summer (Sadof, 2018). Tent caterpillars only have one generation per year, so a few weeks after making themselves known, they go into their cocoons, and the tents fall off the trees (Lofgren, 2021).
When we find a tent, we should assess the health of the tree and the developmental stages of the nearby children before we decide if we need to remove the tent. We need to be aware of the environment around us, and how everything is connected. Leaving the caterpillars where they are encourages greater biodiversity in our yard, as the caterpillars will attract small birds, lizards, and other small natural predators. Their excrement is also a good fertilizer for our plants, some of which grow food. That being said, if children eat the caterpillars the hairs could injure their intestinal tract (Lofgren, 2021).
BC’s Early Learning Framework (ELF) (2019) outlines nine principles of learning, one of which includes building a (re)connection to the land (p. 21). The First Peoples Principles of Learning outlined in the ELF also states that learning should support “the well-being of the self, the family, the community, the land, the spirits, and the ancestors” (p. 14). We, as humans, are interdependent on our more-that-human relations with whom we share this land (Styres, 2011), so it is important to consider what will happen if we remove something unnecessarily.
The ELF also discusses the early learning philosophy of the environment as the third teacher, referring to the classroom and yard (p. 22). In Indigenous philosophy, we often refer to land as the first teacher (Styres, 2011). Sandra Styres uses Bowlby’s attachment theory as an analogy to explain how the land is thought of as the first teacher. The land can be thought of as the primary caregiver, which the learner enters “to explore and gain knowledge and understanding of how to be in relation to land” (p. 722). As the learner strengthens their connection to land through lived experiences, the land becomes the primary teacher/relationship (Styres, 2011).
While the tents made by tent caterpillars can become unsightly, and caterpillar activity can be concerning, they aren’t as destructive as I though they would be. Next year, the tent caterpillar activity should be much lower, so perhaps if we find a tent in a healthy tree, we should consider leaving it up.
References
British Columbia Ministry of Education, Ministry of Children and Family Development, and Ministry of Health. (2019). British Columbia Early Learning Framework. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/education/early-learning/teach/earlylearning/early_learning_framework.pdf
Dickson, C, (2023, May 24). There’s a tent caterpillar outbreak on Vancouver Island – but no need to panic, zoologist says. CBC news. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/tent-caterpillar-outbreak-vancouver-island-1.6852018
Lofgren, K. (2021, June 30). How to eradicate tent caterpillars (and whether you should). Garderner’s path. https://gardenerspath.com/how-to/disease-and-pests/tent-caterpillars/
Sadof, C. (2018, July 17). Will my trees recover after losing their leaves? Purdue University landscape report. https://www.purduelandscapereport.org/article/will-my-trees-recover-after-losing-their-leaves/
Styres, S. D. (2011). Land as first teacher: A philosophical journeying. Reflective Practice, 12(6), 717-731. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623943.2011.601083
“What does it mean to live well with others?” (Vintimilla & Pacini-Ketchabaw, 2020, p. 638)
Thank you for this post Hannah! The information you shared about the cycles and life of tent caterpillars created necessary cracks in my habitual ways of knowing, highlighting the importance of unlearning – rethinking – relearning. For as long as I can remember I have been told to cut out the tents early, to burn or drown them, to not let the caterpillars get a hold of the tree. I never really questioned it. We cut 12 tents out of the apple tree at Arbutus Place this year, we put them in compost bags and into the green bin – eek 🙁 . While we try to live our days at the centre under a common worlding framework this is the perfect example of how easy it is to stumble – a reminder that as settlers we need to continually situate ourselves – rethink and relearn through each encounter and entanglement so that we can care(fully) respond in a way that best honours our interdependent relations. I appreciate you drawing our attention to the First Peoples Principles of Learning.
Over the years we have thought with the work of geographer Franklin Ginn (2013) and wondered how might we, “…attend to the ambiguities and ambivalences of living with non-humans close by and in familiar settings, and in ways not necessarily harmonious or without conflict” (p.532)? In our case, rats, hares, lizards, cats, aphids, George, and now tent caterpillars. And while there never seems to be a clear or easy answer, in the future we will carefully consider the caterpillars, the tree, and those they may draw into Yard. The tree is not a major food source for us, if we were operating an orchard to feed the community perhaps things would be different, but for now we (children – educators – apple tree – caterpillars) will need to figure out ‘what it means to live well together’ with difference. I have begun having conversations with the children about the information you shared as we spot holes in leaves and have mentioned it to a few families as caterpillars came up in conversation – they are hard to miss on the sidewalks and pavement these days.
On a side note:
After your post I went down a bit of a rabbit hole reading info about tent caterpillars here on the island and I found this recent article in the Times Colonist, https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/march-of-the-caterpillars-is-here-but-dont-be-alarmed-7041865
Narda also shared an article with us from The Guardian about the declining number of flying insects – perhaps another reason to leave the caterpillars, to invite/create greater biodiversity in a time when so much is at risk due to climate change (result of colonization)? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/may/05/flying-insect-numbers-have-plunged-by-60-since-2004-gb-survey-finds
References
Ginn, F. (2014). Sticky lives: Slugs, detachment and more-than-human ethics in the garden. Transactions, 39(4), 532-544. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12043
Vintimilla, C. D., & Pacini-Ketchabaw, V. (2020). Weaving pedagogy in early childhood education: on openings and their foreclosure. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 28(5), 628–641. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2020.1817235
Thanks for sharing that article from the Guardian! That’s so interesting! I wonder if the statistics are similar here? I think a lot of people (myself included) easily forget that insects and “weeds” are also important to the ecosystem. I put weeds in quotations because what is considered a weed is very subjective and contextual.
I was exactly the same as you with the tent caterpillars. I was sure that they consistently destroyed trees. I thought my post would be about how to dispose of or move the tents ethically, but I was completely wrong. Writing this piece reminded me to think more deeply about the interconnectedness of everything in our environment, and to research what the best course of action would be.