Overview
- Large-scale mechanical removal by specialist teams and private firms has been under way in mid-June in multiple Berlin parks and in parts of the Munich outskirts to clear thousands of nests from schoolyards, cycle paths and recreational areas.
- The caterpillar’s microscopic barbed hairs contain a toxin that can cause skin rashes, eye and respiratory symptoms and, in rare cases, severe allergic reactions in people and animals, so authorities have closed or restricted access to affected sites.
- Local officials say current responses rely mainly on vacuuming, glue traps and protected climbers but are overstretched because of procurement rules, tight district budgets and limits on scaling up operations.
- Bezirke report heavy costs and operational strain with some districts removing thousands of nests and spending several hundred thousand euros, and they have formally asked the Berlin Senate for additional funding and authorization to use biozides or nematodes.
- Experts link the surge to a warm, dry spring and mild winter that favor higher survival rates and faster larval development, and they warn that larvae will pupate in July so insufficient control now raises the risk that adult moths will lay eggs for a larger 2027 outbreak.