It's a tiny bug that's creating a massive problem to the Hemlock trees within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Fortunately, park foresters know just what to do to fight back.

When you're on a walk or hike through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, there are certain sights and sounds to expect. From rushing water from the countless streams that flow down the mountains, birds chirping in the early morning as the sun beams through the trees, or just a calm and quiet trail with no noise from everyday life are commonplace.

But park foresters are in the process of creating some noise that is not quite expected. They're using power tools to drill holes into the bases of trees throughout the park. More specifically, they're drilling holes into the bases of Hemlock trees in an effort to save the life of the tree.

"These trees are 200 to 300 years old," said park forester Jesse Webster.

Webster and his team of foresters, some full-time employees, some volunteers or interns, are drilling the holes so they can insert I.V.'s into the tree trunks. It's an operating room, so to speak, and it's currently one of two ways to fight a war on a microscopic bug that has ravaged Hemlock trees up and down the East Coast.

Foresters are in a battle against the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid.

"It's a very tiny, microscopic, sap feeding insect," Webster explained.

The bug may be small, but what it lacks in size, it makes up for in destruction. Carried into the U.S. from Japan, the bug is found from Maine to Alabama and is capable of killing entire forests of Hemlock trees. In fact, it's already nearly wiped out massive sections in Virginia, which is why Great Smoky Mountain National Park foresters are trying to hard to get the invasive species under control. Originally found in the park in 2002, it took less than five years before it was found in every watershed within the park boundaries.

"It's killed 99 percent, 98 percent of the hemlock trees in Shenandoah National Park. So it's really broken out into the Hemlock forests throughout the east," Webster said. "It's a chronic disease. Especially in the southeast, after two to three years, you're looking at tree mortality. Entire stands. That's what we're really concerned about in the Smokies."

To fight against the insect, foresters drill small holes into the base of the tree, then feed insect killer through tubes. The chemical is ingested by the tree, pushed up through the branches, and specifically targets the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid to kill it. Webster said this technique isn't harmful to the trees, and it's also not the most effective way to win the war against the bug. In fact, he said the goal isn't to completely destroy the bug. Rather, they just want to maintain it. In order to do that, they are also introducing a beetle to the forest that only eats the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid. He said the beetle will establish a more natural relationship of predator verses prey to the adelgid.

"I like to use the analogy of bobcats and rabbits. We've got lots of rabbits with the adelgids. We've released some bobcats now with these beetles. So we need more bobcats," Webster said. "We don't predict that we're going to eradicate HWA (Hemlock Woolly Adelgid) completely. That's not our goal. It's just to make it tolerable for these big, shade producing Hemlock trees in the Smokies."

Webster explained how it's the shade the giant trees produce that is so valuable to the forest. Without the trees and their spread of branches and needles at the canopy of the forest, the streams and rivers underneath them would get too warm. That water is what helps regulate the temperatures in the forest, especially during the hot summers. Webster said if it wasn't for the Hemlock tree, the park would see unnatural temperature swings, which leads to more problems for more species of wildlife that are native to the forest. He said the Hemlock tree is the one of the foundations for the ecology of the park.

"The Hemlock tree isn't a valuable timber commodity, per say. It's really a valuable, ecological resource. These trees are the foundation of a lot of the cool, clear streams we have in the Smoky Mountains that flow down in the valley," Webster said.

Webster's team of workers can typically treat between 200 to 300 trees a day with this intravenous way to applying the treatment. He said it's thanks to volunteers through organizations like Friends of the Smokies that they are able to take on such a massive job like this. The injection of chemicals typically keeps the tree protected anywhere between five to seven years before it will have to be reapplied.

To learn more about the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid, visit the Great Smoky Mountains National Park website through the link on this page.