Celebrate Tyler Arboretum's trail reopening with a new challenge

Middletown Township, Pennsylvania -- Inside 550 acres of protected natural areas of Pennsylvania's Tyler Arboretum in 2022, Heather Saunders and her team discovered an emerald ash borer infestation decimating their ash trees. She is the president of the board of trustees at Tyler and says it was a difficult decision to make.

Heather says, "Our native ash trees just don't have any resistance to it. All of our native plants are potentially vulnerable to invasive pests."

The decision to close the trails was to protect hikers and guests, and to give time for their teams to remove more than 1500 ash trees from the forested landscape.

Tyler isn't alone. The emerald ash borer is an invasive species of beetle originating from Asia and is doing much damage to ash trees in North America and Euro