Domestic quarantine pest evaluation and response

Within USDA-APHIS-PPQ, the Pest Evaluation and Response (PER) group handles domestic quarantine pest detections. The mission of PER is to develop a federal strategy for quarantine pests that are detected domestically and are not part of an established domestic program. The basic workflow for when a new pest is found follows eight steps that involve confirming the identification, working with other groups within PPQ to gather information and evaluate the risk, crafting a response plan, implementing this plan, and coming to a final resolution. Here I will provide an example of the PER process using the detection of an Atlas moth in Washington State in 2022. This detection was made even more interesting by news reports in the popular press and connections to an e-commerce listing.