"Back when I wrote about the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug, Halyomorpha halys, it was an introduced species from Eurasia that was no more than an indoor nuisance pest in the U.S. in the fall and winter. It has since ballooned into a certifiable agricultural pest in apple and peach orchards, and also vineyards. So panic-stricken are government officials that congress is attempting to pass a $831,000 “farm bill” to find ways of combating the bug. Enter a native wasp, Bicyrtes quadrifasciatus, pictured below. The wasp is a type of “sand wasp” that preys on true bugs in the order Hemiptera, suborder Heteroptera. Each female wasp digs a burrow in sand, and stocks the cell at the end of the tunnel with paralyzed true bugs that will serve as food for a single larval offspring. Turns out that the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug has become a favorite target of the wasp, which hunts the immature stages of the pest (see figure below). Alex Surcică has noticed this trend, and wants to document the efficiency of the wasps in controlling the bug." - John (bird whisperer) from Bookmarklet

"Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is considering importing a parasitic wasp from the geographical area overseas where the stink bug is native. Introductions of parasites as “biocontrols” have not always ended well. There is the risk that the “new” parasite from abroad will find our native, non-pest stink bugs as acceptable a host as the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug. Maybe the native bugs would be even more attractive to the parasite. That kind of scenario has happened before." - John (bird whisperer)

Yes, I think testing biological controls must be hard. I think the pressure is so high that people don't want to wait for several stages of trials to make sure the introduced predator won't be as bad or worse than what they're fighting. - Spidra Webster

I've seen this species in the yard: http://friendfeed.com/dendroi... I guess it was hunting stink bugs out there. ... There are supposed to be testing protocols in place to make sure biocontrols actually work on the species they're supposed to work on, but once you release something into the wild, you can't really control how it will act. Plus with the USDA there's always the danger that they'll ignore their protocols. - John (bird whisperer)

I saw a facility at UC Berkeley where they start to test biocontrols. Still, testing in a small closed environment is not the same thing. I think you'd have to test in bigger and more diverse closed systems before you could be reasonably sure it didn't have unintended consequences. - Spidra Webster

Plus you probably can't test for all of the species that might be affected since there are so many insects. - John (bird whisperer)