What changed
Beijing Wildlife Park turned Golden Week pest control into a public contest, inviting visitors to catch invasive fall webworm larvae for prizes, including up to 10 park tickets.
Since Sept. 28, 2,077 people have collected more than 310,000 caterpillars, weighing 47.65 kilograms. Participants searched the nearly 550-acre park with gloves, plastic containers and chopsticks.
Why it matters
This is pest removal with a family-day makeover. The fall webworm, native to North America, can damage more than 300 plant species, including crops and fruit trees. Beijing is now seeing peak damage from the insects’ third generation this year.
The park’s approach makes an unpleasant task easy to understand: spot the larvae, pick them up and bring them back. It also gives children a reason to look closely at the plants around them. The prizes help, but the bigger achievement may be turning an invasive species into something visitors can recognise and report.
The scale of the haul is striking, yet it does not show whether the contest has materially reduced damage or changed conditions beyond the park. For now, it is a vivid public response to a recurring problem, not proof that the “forest food monster” has been beaten.
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