Earth Day Remembrance

On this Earth Day, we remember an environmental crisis in Melrose hatched by humans over a century ago.

In 1879, a French scientist living in Medford was conducting experiments on imported European gypsy moths, and he allowed some of them to escape. The larvae of the moths began to eat the foliage in the Fells. Over the course of the following years, the moth population swelled, and by the 1890s millions of moths were living across the Boston area, with the highest concentration just north of the city.

The infestation became so bad that entire forests were defoliated. Newspaper reports described how a single kerosene or electric lamp could draw swarms of thousands of moths. Horrifyingly, the larvae and their excrement would become airborne, fall like rain, and cause a painful, itchy rash like poison ivy on the skin of anyone who came in contact with it. By 1900, gypsy moth exterminators were paid by the city to wander the streets and woodlands of Melrose, searching out larvae to douse with poisons. Even a segment of the Melrose Police Department was put on a seasonal gypsy moth extermination detail.

The US Department of Agriculture realized that the infestation posed a threat to the future of the entire country, and tasked a team of scientists to put an end to it. Their lab was established in 1905 at 17 East Highland Avenue, a private home with an ample backyard. The backyard was crucial, because the scientists built temporary structures there to house new invasive species that they had imported from abroad which they hoped would kill the gypsy moth. A Japanese beetle that ate the larvae, and a fly from Southern Italy with parasitic maggots were two of the best candidates. The scientists would breed them at 17 East Highland, release them in the wild, and observe the results.

The gypsy moth lab lasted until 1932, moving around the corner in 1925 to 964 Main Street. They also owned a storehouse at an as-yet unidentified location, which you can see in the last image. Though not in the numbers seen a century ago, the gypsy moth is still with us, a seasonal reminder of the impact a single human decision can have on the ecosystem.