Yesterday I received an intriguing email from ‘Annette’. Her subject line

was “Seattle and the Mystery of the Red Composting Worm Disappearance” (as

you can see I’ve used an abridged version for the title of this post). Needless

to say, it sucked me right in! Here was her message:

I just called Seattle Tilth’s gardening hotline because I could not

figure out why on earth my red worms were gone. I’ve done this for

years and never had any issues. Conditions were not too wet or dry in

the wood worm bin. Apparently, most of Seattle is experiencing a red

worm disappearance. Seattle Tilth has been selling compost worms for as long as I can remember and

they stopped because nobody – even other gardening stores – can figure

out what the hell is happening. (this happened before our recent cold

spell, I might add). Also, a friend of mine ordered online some worms

from a totally different source than where I got mine and his are gone

too. Any thoughts?

Hi Annette,

As you already know, this has me completely stumped! I decided to post it here on the blog for the sake of seeing if anyone else had heard anything about this.

If the worms were all from the same source it would be a lot easier to come up with a potential explanation for them disappearing like this. There might have been some sort of contamination in their bedding (pesticides or other harmful chemicals etc), among other possibilities – but given the fact that the worms are coming from a variety of sources this all sounds rather ominous!

There are no known Red Worm diseases of significance, and even if there were it would still seem pretty odd that the impact was (seemingly) so widespread in just the Seattle area.

I wonder if these are all outdoor systems? If so, perhaps there is some sort of (new?) pest in the Seattle area that is wreaking havoc. I seem to recall someone from out that way mentioning that there was a fairly new soil critter that was having an impact on earthworm populations. Perhaps I should try to dig up that email exchange!

Anyway – I would love to see if any other RWC readers have heard about this!

Thanks again for writing in.

😎