The two-lined spittlebug arrived on Hawaii island in 2016.
The tiny black bug is about one centimeter long with two blood-orange stripes across its body and red legs. It’s a leaf hopper that feeds on grass through its entire life cycle, which is typically around 60 days.
Now, 10 years later, it has destroyed an estimated 320,000 acres of ranchlands from Pu‘u Wa‘awa‘a to South Point.
“It has grown tremendously,” said Mark Thorne, a range and livestock extension specialist with the University of
Hawaii.
Thorne has led research on the pest’s impact on the island since its arrival. He said if nothing is done and the pest moves north into Waimea, where the state’s largest livestock production resides, “we stand to potentially lose our best cattle production ranchlands and that entire industry.”
The threat to the cattle industry prompted Sen. Mike Gabbard, D Kapolei-Makakilo-Kalaeloa, to introduce SB 2321, which would create a two-year response pilot program within the Department of Agriculture and Biosecurity to address the spittlebug on the Big Island. The bill passed its first reading on Jan. 21 and was referred to the Agriculture and Environment and Ways and Means committees on Jan. 26.
“This bill is really about getting ahead of the problem,” Gabbard said in an email. “Not just reacting once the damage is already done.”
As of 2023, the bill said, the state’s livestock industry had a production value of more than $50 million with more than 143,000 beef cattle. Most of that cattle is raised on Hawaii island
and 70% of them feed on sod-farming grasses, such as kikuyo and pangola, which the spittlebug targets.
The bug is native to the southeast United States, said Nicole Galase, managing director for Hawaii Cattlemen’s Council. She said she helped lobby for the bill, which aims to help ranchers who are “shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to battle this bug on their own” stay in business while ensuring best practices are taking place to prevent the infestation from spreading.
“It’s not something that just ranchers alone can combat,” she said. “The fact is the ranchers are on the front line of having to deal with it, but eventually we are worried that it could be affecting any area with grass cover.”
When the spittlebug kills pasture grass, it clears the way for invasive grasses and weeds to move in, Thorne said. Those invasive grasses and weeds are incredibly
difficult for ranchers to
remove.
“It basically renders the rangelands that our livestock industry rely on almost to the point of not being able to support livestock production,” Thorne said. “It’s pretty devastating.”
So far, the infestation has been able to stay concentrated in the south Kona area, Thorne said, but a new population was recently discovered in Glenwood likely due to inadvertent human transportation.
Thorne said a response team could help educate ranchers about the bug and its impact so that they can implement quick responses as soon as they notice a dead patch of grass or spittlebug masses in the soil.
The bug is difficult to spot because of its small size and proximity to the soil line for the majority of its life cycle. Eggs are laid in soil and when they hatch, tiny nymphs excrete white froth known as “spittle mass” that protect them from predators and drying out. Adults can be seen hopping around the pasture for the final three to four weeks of their life.
As of now, Thorne said the best way to contain the pest is to target them while they are in the nymph stage by cutting the grass short and spraying pesticide after finding a patch of dying grass. He also advised ranchers to ensure mud is cleaned from equipment, shoes and cars.
A mobile phone application was also created by Thorne’s team to help the public identify and report the pest. The app can be downloaded at tlsbhawaii.com.
Franny Brewer, program manager for the Big Island Invasive Species Committee, said a key infrastructure need that is sometimes overlooked is a way for ranchers to store grass seed. Ranchers have a limited time to reseed land after grass is destroyed, she said, and timing that with shipping seed from the mainland has been a challenge.
“There’s no secure facility that has the right environmental conditions on this island where there could be a place where seed is stored so we could buy bulk seed and have it ready to distribute to the ranchers,” she said. “Just even that infrastructure would be huge.”
Brewer supported the bill but emphasized the need for a clear plan from the
department.
She added that the bug will not only have negative effects on the cattle industry and Hawaii’s food security, but also can impact Hawaii’s watersheds through soil erosion.
“It’s really important for any invasive species to have a plan early, and have steps that you can implement,” she said. “If you don’t have
a plan and you’re just getting funding willy-nilly, is that going to contribute
long term to the success
of the response?”
Stacey Chun, an entomologist for the Department of Agriculture and Biosecurity in Hilo, said the agency needs more funding to do more research on mitigation strategies on the pest.
“The cattle industry is a $50 million industry,” he said. “We need all the support we can get for it. There are jobs and lifestyles affected and we need to help keep the local economy
going.”
Gabbard said if passed, the pilot response team will target early infestations, map the big’s spread and test most effective and affordable ways to control it. It will also allow support and reimbursement for ranchers to ensure they “aren’t left to shoulder the cost alone,” Gabbard said.
The program would need an estimated
$1.6 million to operation — $800,000 for each year — Gabbard said. He noted that the coconut rhinoceros beetle, which has decimated Oahu’s palm trees, showed what happens when invasive species outpace a coordinated response: containment becomes more expensive and less effective.
Gabbard emphasized that every dollar spent now will save more money down the line as the state works to stop the spread of bug.
“If we wait until this pest spreads across more islands and more ranchlands,” Gabbard said, “the cost to the state — in emergency response, lost agricultural production and higher food prices — will be far greater than what it takes to fund this pilot program and do it right the first time.”
