HONOLULU — The season's first large shipment of Christmas trees from the mainland came decorated — with yellow jackets.
Four refrigerated containers from the Pacific Northwest — each holding about 300 Christmas trees — were found on Saturday to be infested with the predatory wasps and were quarantined, according to Janelle Saneishi, spokeswoman for Hawaii's Department of Agriculture.
About 50 containers were examined during the weekend, and inspectors were going through an additional 50 on Monday, Saneishi said.
The vast majority of the state's trees are shipped in from the mainland, according to Richard Tajiri, who has been importing trees for 30 years through his company, Christmas Hawaii.
The inspections are part of a statewide effort to keep invasive plants, insects and animals out of Hawaii's fragile ecosystem, which has more endangered species than anyplace in the USA, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
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Source: USA Today