Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 8A PICKENS COUNTY PROGRESS THURSDAY. NOVEMBER 12. 2020
Like it or not, Joro spiders are here to stay
Joro spiders, which can be nearly 3 inches across when
their legs are fully extended, are roughly the same size as
banana spiders and yellow garden spiders, but they have
distinctive yellow and blue-black stripes on their backs and
bright red markings on their undersides, which are unique.
By Beth Gavrilles for
CAES News
Chances are, if you live in
northeast Georgia you’ve
come across an East Asian
Joro spider this fall.
At almost 3 inches across
when their legs are fully ex
tended, they’re hard to miss.
While they’re roughly the
same size as banana spiders
and yellow garden spiders,
the distinctive yellow and
blue-black stripes on their
backs and bright red mark
ings on their undersides are
unique. Their enormous
three-dimensional webs are a
striking golden color and
tend to be located higher off
the ground than those of
other spiders.
"We’ve been getting lots
of calls and emails from peo
ple reporting sightings,” said
Byron Freeman, director of
the Georgia Museum of Nat
ural History. “They seem to
be really common in riparian
areas and in urban areas
around people’s houses, but
they’re also in the deep
woods.”
Joro spiders have spread
widely since they were first
spotted in Hoschton, Geor
gia, in 2013. They probably
arrived by hitching a ride in a
shipping container from
China or Japan, according to
Freeman. He and Richard
Hoebeke, associate curator of
the museum’s arthropod col
lection and a research profes
sional in the University of
Georgia College of Agricul
tural and Environmental Sci
ences Department of
Entomology, confirmed the
identity of those early ar
rivals based on genetic analy
sis in 2015.
Now, five years later, Joro
spiders appear to have suc
cessfully established them
selves in the area, with recent
confirmed reports from as far
afield as Blairsville, Georgia,
and Greenville, South Car
olina. But there is still much
that remains unknown about
them.
One important question is
how they might affect the
local ecosystem. Will they
outcompete other orb weav
ing spiders? Will they reduce
insect populations through
predation?
“We don’t know what the
impact is going to be,” said
Freeman, a faculty member
in the University of Georgia
Odum School of Ecology.
“Right now, we’re trying to
learn as much as we can
about them.”
So far, early observations
indicate that Joros are coex
isting with the area’s other
orb weaving spiders, with
webs close to, and in some
cases even attached to, one
another.
And Joro spiders also ap
pear to be able to capture and
feed on at least one insect
that other local spiders are
not: adult brown marmorated
stink bugs, an invasive pest
that can infest houses and
damage crops. In turn, Joro
spiders are vulnerable to
predators like mud dauber
wasps and birds.
Freeman noted that dew-
drop spiders, a kleptopara-
site—as the name implies,
they steal food from others—
have been spotted in Joro
webs.
“They may be switching
from what we thought was
their principal host, the ba
nana spider, to this new kind
of orb weaver,” he said. He
pointed out that banana spi
ders, a relative of the Joro,
are native to the Caribbean
and Central America. They
were first recorded in the
U.S. in 1862 and have since
naturalized.
“My guess is that this will
be no different than the ba
nana spider, and I don’t know
that we can assess what the
effect of the banana spider
has been at this point,” he
said.
Another question Free
man hopes to answer is how
the males find their mates.
Joro spiders travel by bal
looning, letting the wind
carry them on a strand of gos
samer.
“The male has to drift in
and find the female,” Free
man said. “Sometimes
there’ll be four or five males
on a web, sometimes there’ll
be one, so the males are mov
ing between webs. When you
have a large population it
seems feasible that a male
could just drift from one spot
to the next, but when you
don’t have a lot of webs
around, how does the male
show up?”
Freeman is also conduct
ing further genetic analysis to
determine what causes some
Joro spiders to have a differ
ent color pattern. While most
have distinctive black and
yellow striped legs, some
have legs that are solid black.
These black morphs have
other physical differences
that are only apparent when
viewed under a microscope,
and Freeman has determined
that they are genetically dis
tinct members of the species.
Despite their size, Free
man said that Joro spiders
don’t pose a threat to people.
“All spiders have venom
that they use to subdue prey,”
he said. “If you put your hand
in front of one and try to
make it bite you, it probably
will. But they run if you dis
turb their web. They’re trying
to get out of the way.”
Freeman said that Joros
can be shooed away with a
broom if they’re in a location
that puts them too close for
comfort.
But as for removing them
permanently, he compared
such efforts to shoveling sand
at the beach.
“Should you try to get rid
of them?” said Freeman.
“You can, but at this point,
they’re here to stay.”
If you spot a Joro spider
— especially if you can pro
vide a photo tagged with date
and location — please con
tact Hoebeke at
rhoebeke@uga.edu.
Beth Gavrilles is the pub
lic relations coordinator for
the University of Georgia
Odum School of Ecology’.
Critics: Georgia health-insurance
reforms a ‘missed opportunity’
By Dave Williams
Bureau Chief
Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA - Georgia’s
new health-insurance reform
plan will address three prob
lems at once, Gov. Brian
Kemp announced recently
when he rolled out two insur
ance “waivers” approved by
the federal government.
The governor’s “Georgia
centric” approach will reduce
one of the nation’s highest
uninsured rates, lower premi
ums and increase competi
tion in the private
health-insurance market,
Kemp said.
But the plan is getting
pushback from patient advo
cates who argue the state isn’t
getting enough bang for its
buck and could cover more
Georgians for about the same
cost to taxpayers.
“This is a huge missed op
portunity,” said Laura Col
bert, executive director of
Georgians for a Healthy Fu
ture. “We’re missing the
most cost-effective way to
solve this problem.”
The two waivers will
allow the state to undertake a
limited expansion of its Med
icaid program and give Geor
gians with incomes too high
to qualify for Medicaid op
tions outside the Affordable
Care Act (ACA).
Under the Medicaid
waiver, single adults with in
comes up to 100% of the fed
eral poverty level, currently
$12,760 a year, can enroll in
Medicaid or an employer-
sponsored insurance plan
starting next July. The state
will help pay premiums and
copays for those who sign up
for insurance through their
jobs.
To qualify, enrollees will
have to take part in “qualify
ing activities” for at least 80
hours a month, such as a job,
on-the-job training, voca
tional training, education or
community service.
Under a second waiver,
the state will fund a reinsur
ance program starting in Jan
uary 2022 aimed at holding
down premiums by paying
part of an insurance com
pany’s claims once they ex
ceed a certain amount.
The program is expected to
reduce premiums statewide
up to 10% on average and up
to 25% in some communities,
primarily in rural Georgia.
The second waiver also
will eliminate the health
care.gov portal the ACA pro
vides for enrollment in
individual coverage plans, ef
fective as of January 2023,
and let Georgians sign up di
rectly with private insurance
carriers, local brokers or
agents, or through web-bro-
ker sites.
Georgia enrollment in
healthcare.gov has fallen by
22% since 2016, a trend the
governor blamed on the site
being clunky to use.
“For me, healthcare.gov is
a four-letter word,” Kemp
said. “The enrollment
process has been nothing
short of disappointing.”
The state anticipates the
Medicaid waiver will cost
taxpayers an average of $218
million per year. On the other
hand, Deloitte Consulting,
the firm the state hired to
help develop the waivers,
projected the cost of a “full
blown” expansion of Medi
caid through the ACA would
cost Georgia $547 million
annually.
But the plan’s critics ques
tion Deloitte’s numbers.
They cite a state Department
of Audits and Accounts re
port last year that a full ex
pansion of Medicaid - as 38
other states have done -
would cost Georgia $213.2
million in fiscal 2022.
Also, while the state’s
Medicaid waiver is expected
to cover about 65,000 Geor
gians, last year’s fiscal note
asserted a full expansion -
covering single adults with
incomes up to 138% of the
poverty level - would serve
more than 500,000.
“You’re spending four
times more per person with
this waiver than you would
with a [full] Medicaid expan
sion,” said Laura Harker,
health policy analyst for the
Georgia Budget and Policy
Institute.
But supporters say there’s
more to Georgia’s brand of
Medicaid expansion than
meets the eye.
Kyle Wingfield, president
of the Georgia Public Policy
Foundation, asserted in a re
cent column the Medicaid
waiver’s impact will be felt
far beyond the projected
numbers because it won’t
discourage people from bet
tering themselves by earning
more money.
“It will help provide a
smoother transition to private
insurance markets,” he wrote.
“So, as people climb the in
come ladder and move out of
the program, new people will
enter it - extending the im
pact to more Georgians.”
Indeed, Kemp predicted
PICKENS COUNTY
RECYCLING CENTER
ACCEPTS THE FOLLOWING ITEMS
#1 Plastics
Wafer bottles,
drinking bottles,
soda bottles,
mavo jars,
peanut buffer
jars, etc.
DC
#2 Plastics
Milk jugs, washing/
detergent jugs,
bleach bottles,
etc.
DC
Paper Products
Mixed paper,
junk mail,
newspapers,
etc.
Glass
Bottles Only:
Clear, brown,
green
No window panels/
or car
windshields
DC
DC
Steel Cans
8c
Metal
Do Not Accept
Styrofoam, Plastic
furniture, water
hoses, all other
Plastics not
mentioned, incl.
#3-7, Plastic
flowers, hard
or rigid Plastics.
Help us recycle the correct products.
Director Waste/Recycling, Kenny Woodard
390 Appalachian Court. Jasper. GA
more than 270,000 Georgians
ultimately will benefit from
the Medicaid expansion.
The Georgia waivers’ detrac
tors also are concerned about
the qualifying activities the
Medicaid waiver will require
of enrollees.
Colbert said the provision
leaves out full-time care
givers and those who don’t
have access to the internet,
which enrollees will have to
use regularly to report their
activities.
“The history of Medicaid
hasn’t been a program about
work,” Harker said. “It’s
been a program about
health.”
Harker also defended the
healthcare.gov website. She
said the portal has rebounded
from a rash of technical prob
lems when it was first rolled
out during the last decade.
“We’d be the only state
without some type of central
marketplace,” she said of
Georgia’s plan to abandon
healthcare.gov. “Most states
either have healthcare.gov or
their own exchange.”
But Wingfield argued that
replacing healthcare.gov with
a wider array of coverage op
tions in the private market
would let Georgians buy less
expensive coverage if they
choose.
“Brokers and insurance
carriers will be able to show
consumers not only the sub
sidized, but very expensive,
ACA plans, but other types of
coverage that may cost them
even less out of pocket,” he
wrote.
“Injecting more competi
tion and options into this
marketplace is a crucial step
toward reining in prices and
giving Georgians better ac
cess to care.”
Georgia Lottery sets
record for profits
By Dave Williams
Bureau Chief
Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA - The Georgia
Lottery set a record for
profits during the first quar
ter, Gov. Brian Kemp an
nounced Monday.
The lottery brought in al
most $383.4 million during
July, August and September,
the most profitable quarter
in the program’s history.
That brought the total the
lottery has transferred to ed
ucation to about $22.7 bil
lion.
“The Georgia Lottery
continues to produce strong
results for Georgia’s HOPE
and Pre-K programs,”
Kemp said. “Students and
families throughout the
Peach State benefit greatly
from the Lottery's continued
success, and we appreciate
their hard work to support
education in Georgia."
The Georgia Lottery’s
record first quarter follows
a record fiscal 2020 that
generated more than $1.23
billion for HOPE and Pre-
K.
“Our record first quarter
provides a strong founda
tion to build upon for the re
mainder of the fiscal year,”
said Gretchen Corbin, the
lottery’s president and
CEO.
More than 1.9 million
Georgia students have re
ceived HOPE during its 27-
year history, and more than
1.6 million 4-year-olds have
attended the statewide, vol
untary prekindergarten pro
gram.
y Ambulance Service
Now Hiring
EMTs
VERY competitive wages
For more info, 770-330-0161
Skyline, ems.llctglgmail. com
1549 East Church St., Ste. D
Jasper, GA 30143
^’S GONNA
GET MESSY
Au $
YW/SHANESRI]
CK.COM
TENDERS • WINGS • SALADS
CATERING • DINE IN OR TAKE OUT
706-635-RIBS (7427)
FAX 706-635-7429
289 Highland Crossing • East Ellijay, GA 30540
Across from Walmart