Shellfish licenses for the 7/1/25 - 6/30/26 harvesting year are now on sale at the Town Office. Please see the official notice for details. 

A message from our Tree Warden: 

Good morning. Several weeks ago I contacted Tom Shmeelk, the state entomologist about the winter moth outbreak in our area and the possibility of releasing parasitic wasps on the island. At the time of our conversation, he informed me that the supply of parasitic wasps was already accounted for this year. They have been released in Phipsburg and Georgetown. He did feel confident that they would travel to Westport Island from these release sites but also said that Westport was on the top of the list for reevaluation in the Spring of 2026. Once established, Tom said the wasps were very effective in controling winter moth. He also confirmed that the winter moth has been hybridizing with our native Bruce Spanworm. So far, most of our oaks and other hardwoods have made a recovery and regained their leaf canopy. Another cyclical native inch worm that Tom was even more concerned about is the Fall Canker worm. Similar in appearance to the Winter Moth, the Fall Canker worm is also very destructive and follows a similar life cycle to the Winter Moth and Spanworm. Tom speculated that the Fall Canker worm, which has cyclical outbreaks, will cause widespread defoliation of hardwoods in the Spring of 2026. So while the parasitic wasp introduced to control wintermoth may be effective, we may still see wide spread defoliation of hardwood canopies in the spring of 2026. There are also native parasitic wasps that target canker worm which will eventually check the cyclical outbreak of the canker worm. From my understanding each worm has specific parasitic wasps that specialize in individual species of worm. So in conclusion, we may see another hard start to hardwood spring growth in the fall of 2026. Home owners can spray BT which is a bacteria that targets all caerpillar species but the majority of the woodland canopy will have to rely on parasitic wasps and other natural checks that reduce populations. I will be reaching out to Tom to see if he may be interested in doing a small talk on Westport later this summer.

Cheers,

Kyle