Teen Builds Spotted Lanternfly Traps In 12 Middlesex County Parks

PISCATAWAY, NJ — Viren Asrani, a Boy Scout for Troop 660 of Piscataway, is making it his mission to do away with Spotted Lanterflies in the Somerset and Middlesex County areas.

Asrani decided to custom build Spotted Lanternfly traps as part of his Eagle Scout project.

"I reached out to the Middlesex County Parks Commission to find out how I could help them. I didn't want to do anything generic like build a picnic table. I wanted to do something more meaningful. And they expressed a need for Spotted Lanternfly traps," said Asrani.

He began doing research to learn about the invasive bug.

"I realized this is a huge problem in our state and we need to act on it ASAP," said Asrani.

Asrani referred to a recent Patch article with instructions on how to make traps and modified the traps to work best for him.

He and his troop created 25 traps in total and installed 12 at Middlesex County Parks on May 15. The remainder were installed in scouts' neighborhoods including at Asrani's home in Bridgewater.

"There is no specific way to kill them. These bugs don't have predators in the wild and we want to terminate them any way we can," said Asrani.

Right now, or from late April through June, is the hatching season for the Spotted Lanternflies making it the perfect time to stop these bugs.

"Since this a very important issue in our community, we wanted to bring awareness to this problem and bring some light to our efforts in helping reduce the spread of Spotted Lanternfly in our environment," said Asrani.

Have a news tip? Email alexis.tarrazi@patch.com.

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