The Emerald Ash Borer, a native of East Asia, has been decimating the country's ash trees in thirteen states for the past seven years..

In this week's "Nature Matters" segment, David Hoole finds out what officials, residents, and visitors are doing to slow the spread of the exotic pest.

Cooking over a campfire is a quintessential part of many people's outdoor experience.

While these newlyweds are celebrating their honeymoon with pancakes, they could be introducing a harmful exotic insect, but luckily they're informed.

"We're aware of the invasive species in the wood and so we're sure to buy our firewood instead of bring our own from different places."

And that's exactly what they should be doing says invasive researcher Jim Triebwasser.

"Firewood is the number one way this pest gets spread."

"This is the actual beetle it gets its emerald ash from its color. As you can see its iridescent shiny actually it's a very attractive beetle."

George Olson is a field technician running a trap line of sorts, looking for the Emerald Ash Borer.

Here he's not trying to rescue a kite from a tree, that's one of his 105 traps he has set in northeast Minnesota's public campgrounds.

"This is what we do, like I said it's a sticky trap so it does attract a lot of other insects as well so I look through to see if there are any ash borers actually on the trap. Right here there's just a lot of flies."

There has been no evidence of the pests in this area of Minnesota or Wisconsin and officials are working to keep it that way.

Area campgrounds are happy to accommodate.

"We have a lot of people do ask when they make reservations if they could bring up firewood and we say we prefer it if they do not and prefer they buy it here."

We're trying to be on the leading edge of a lot of this stuff, trying to find it before it becomes too big a problem I find a lot more satisfying than trying to clean up after a mess."

If your ash tree is infested it will likely have unusual sprouts coming out of the trunk.

If any symptoms appear call the U.S. department of Agriculture.