BATTLING THE KILLER BEETLE.

THERE'S A RESIDENTIAL neighborhood in Windsor's west end that's a pleasant collection of middle-class bungalows and 1 1/2-storey A-frames built soon after the Second World War. There, a short walk from the Ambassador Bridge linking the southwestern Ontario city to Detroit, some three dozen 40-year-old ash trees line California Avenue -- but they won't for much longer. City forester Bill Roesel surveys the devastation caused by a voracious Asian beetle that is choking his ash trees to death. The emerald ash borer, discovered just this year in Michigan and, two months later, in Windsor, is munching mercilessly through Windsor's 6,000 ashes, and may already have spread east and west. An immediate concern: whether it will reach Point Pelee National Park, a spectacular sanctuary for migrating birds poking into Lake Erie just 50 km to the southeast. A federally imposed quarantine forbids the shipment of ash firewood, wood or trees from Windsor and four surrounding municipalities where the borer has so far been located. Authorities charged with stopping the invasion are considering felling every ash in a five-kilometer strip around the quarantine zone in a bid to contain the damage. If the defence strategies don't work, the experts warn it could get as bad as the dutch elm disease that decimated those stately trees across North America. With no natural predators, and thriving on trees with no effective resistance, the emerald ash borer has been free to spread. If it isn't stopped, the biggest impact will likely be felt in urban landscapes in Eastern Canada, where the trees are widely used to line streets, and to a lesser extent on the Prairies, where ash is sometimes used as a windbreak.