Spotted Lanternfly inFulton County, GASPOTTED LANTERNFLY GUIDE

Fulton County — home to Atlanta and Georgia's most populous county at 1.07 million residents — sits at the southern terminus of the I-85 corridor, the primary northward spread route by which spotted lanternfly is advancing into the Southeast. The 2025 watch zone designation reflects advance monitoring as SLF populations push south from the Carolinas through the Piedmont corridor. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world's busiest airport, and the dense freight infrastructure of the Atlanta metro create high-risk introduction vectors from quarantine zones across the country. The Chattahoochee River corridor, CSX and Norfolk Southern intermodal yards, and the I-285 perimeter highway all represent priority monitoring zones as Georgia Dept of Agriculture works to detect any early establishment before populations can spread into the state's agricultural interior.