In Thursday’s edition of The House I Grew Up In on Radio 4 Terry Waite mentioned his memory of a poster on the wall at school – a picture of a Colorado beetle.
That took me back – those posters were everywhere in the 1950s, we understood the beetle was a real threat to our still precarious food supplies, though I never heard of anybody who ever saw one.
My Google research showed that such concerns go back at least as far as the Destructive Insects Act of 1877 which gave "Power to the Privy Council and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to make orders for preventing the introduction into Great Britain or Ireland, or spreading there, of the Colorado beetle, and prohibiting or regulating the landing of potatoes, vegetables, &c., likely to introduce the insect, or prohibiting the keeping of specimens for sale, &c."
It is still considered a threat locally, with advice available on the council’s website.
In 1950 the East Germans believed that the Americans were deliberately dropping Colorado beetles on them, a crime against humanity.
These days the Colorado beetle has a website of its own.
Links
The House I Grew Up In
Where to report findings of Colorado beetle
Stop American beetles
COLORADO BEETLE IN ENGLAND IN RELATION TO ITS SPREAD ON THE CONTINENT
Colorado potato beetle website
The House I Grew Up In
Where to report findings of Colorado beetle
Stop American beetles
COLORADO BEETLE IN ENGLAND IN RELATION TO ITS SPREAD ON THE CONTINENT
Colorado potato beetle website
