A menacing creature is lying in wait on the branches of trees lining Mount Nittany, and Penn State alumni could help fend it off.
Without intervention, gypsy moths could take over the historic mountain during their hatching next spring, defoliating the trees, leaving the mountain leafless and altering it for years to come, said Ron Woodhead, president of the Mount Nittany Conservancy.
The conservancy is asking for alumni and others to purchase 1-square-inch, handmade deeds of the mountain, which cost $150 framed, Woodhead said.
The deeds to Mount Nittany have been offered for the past 10 years with about 500 sold. Mostly alumni and parents of graduating students purchase the small piece of Mount Nittany, Woodhead said.
Recent sales from the deeds as well as donations to the conservancy will help offset the cost of the aerial spraying the conservancy plans to conduct in the spring, which could cost between $13,000 and $50,000 for the 765 acres, he said.
One of the plans entails "piggybacking" on Penn State's program to control University Park's gypsy moth population. Mount Nittany Conservancy has not officially asked the university yet, although it is currently in the process of lining that up, Woodhead said.
Penn State's program is funded through the Office of Physical Plant (OPP) landscaping program, and the university would be open to discussing a possible sharing of the technology and resources, said Paul Ruskin, OPP spokesman.
Some areas of the mountain contain as many as 38,000 egg masses per acre with the lowest per-acre egg count being 3,400 -- a detrimentally large gypsy moth population, Woodhead said.
The number needed to participate in the state program this spring, which primarily serves residential areas, is 250 egg masses per area, Woodhead said.
"Centre County's gypsy moth coordinator has already predicted that Pennsylvania in 2008 will sustain the worst gypsy moth damage in the country and Centre County will sustain the worst damage in Pennsylvania," he added.
Gypsy moths can travel as far as 30 to 40 miles and are especially prone to traveling during rough weather, said Jon Eich, Centre County commissioner-elect.
Eich said county commissioners should have warned the county of the impending situation last year after the Northwestern areas of the county were hit with an increase in gypsy moths.
"They had an opportunity to sign up for the spray program and include Centre County ... it may very well have meant that areas around Snow Shoe wouldn't have been hit as hard," he said. "Perhaps people would not have been surprised that the caterpillars blew into the Centre Region."
Chris Exarchos, Centre County commissioner, said there was nothing the county could have done to stop the moths.
"It was just the weather and wind," he said. "Had we known about it, we would have done something to take care of it, but by the time we became aware of it, it was too late to do anything."
Doing nothing is not an option, Woodhead said.
"Mount Nittany's just too popular to say 'tough,' " he said. "That's why it's so important."
