What looked like a simple gardening purchase quickly turned into something far more disturbing for one Oahu family, and in his report for Hawaii News Now, Aalii Dukelow showed why the discovery has struck such a nerve in a state already battling one of its most destructive invasive pests.
According to Dukelow, Waialua resident Wendy Manalo bought three bags of discounted soil from the Lowe’s Home Improvement store in Waipahu, thinking she had found a decent deal for a home project. But when she opened one of those bags the next day, she said what spilled out was not just dirt. It was a mass of coconut rhinoceros beetle larvae, or CRB grubs, packed inside a bag she believed had been sealed and intact.
For anyone who has followed Hawaii’s long fight against the coconut rhinoceros beetle, the story is unsettling on its face. For a homeowner who suddenly finds dozens of larvae in a product meant for planting, it is the kind of surprise that feels less like a nuisance and more like a scene from a nightmare…