A local gardening bureau in east China's Jinan city has created a new policy to try to eliminate the American white moth, a major destroyer of urban trees in the area, by awarding cash to those who catch the moths and turn them in for eradication.

Employees from Lixia District's gardening bureau place American white moths collected by local residents into a white bucket on October 10, 2008 in Jinan, east China's Shandong Province. [Photo: qlwb.com.cn]

The Qilu Evening News reported that the Lixia District's gardening bureau said it would pay people 0.1 yuan for each moth pupa, larva and imago they caught from October 10-14.

On Friday, local residents gathered more than 20,000 live moths, which the district bureau burned after spraying them with insecticide.

One senior citizen who turned in a bottle with more than 2,000 American white moths said he caught the insects in his yard where he grows grapes, pumpkins and towel gourds. He said he had been catching the moths every day since October 1, when he spotted a moth larva on a grape leaf. He added that he was not catching the moths for the money, but because he wanted to actively respond to the call for a more effective means of eliminating the destructive insects.

(CRI October 11, 2008)