Spotted Lanternfly inStafford County, VASPOTTED LANTERNFLY GUIDE

Stafford County is a rapidly growing suburban county south of Washington, D.C., confirmed for SLF in 2023 as populations advanced southward along the I-95 corridor from the established Northern Virginia infestation zone. The county seat of Stafford sits at a critical geographic chokepoint: I-95, one of the busiest freight corridors on the East Coast, runs the length of the county and serves as the primary SLF spread vector pushing populations further south toward Fredericksburg and beyond. Quantico Marine Corps Base occupies a substantial portion of the county's eastern area, where restricted access creates monitoring challenges on a large land parcel. The Rappahannock River corridor provides a natural SLF spread pathway, and the county's rapid population growth is generating new suburban development that creates additional SLF habitat edges throughout the landscape.