The spotted lanternfly has been running amok across the University of Maryland campus. But what if, unlike your ruthless peers who squash them without a second thought, you’re looking for a more “humane” approach to handling them? Fear not — your dedication to pacifism is about to be rewarded. Here’s five non-violent alternatives to get rid of our less-than favorite invasive critters.

1. Tell them to come back when the Purple Line is finished

Cut a deal, shake on it (fingers crossed behind your back, of course), and send your winged fiends off with safe passage out of College Park. As a parting gift, you even promise them a scenic ride down the light rail once construction wraps up. But let’s be honest: by the time the Purple Line finally opens, neither you or the lanternflies will be around to see it. 

2. Host a career fair (for the lanternflies)

Ah, you can see it now: lanternflies lining up at the doors of Stamp hill, carrying resumes in 12 point Times New Roman under each of their six arms. After recruiters tell them “we’re not hiring your kind right now,” you don’t need to be the one to shoo them away. You can imagine it now, the lanternflies embarrassedly taking off, each flushed red as their wings. Dreams squashed. Ouch.

3. Entice them with a study abroad program

If the job market doesn’t pan out, why not send them packing for a trip to the Parth-ant-on? Or maybe a semester with the Eif-flea Tower in Paris? Sure, they might end up overrunning vineyards in France instead of Maryland, but at least they can say that they have “international experience” on their resumes next time recruiters ditch them at a career fair.

4. Assign them to a group project 

One week of sending texts in the group chat without any response will send anyone away on a long vacation. Worst case scenario, they’ll be too stressed out to reproduce after trying to get together three persons worth of work into a Google slides presentation in the span of a single night. 

5. Just say “No”

When all else fails, hit them with the straight-forward approach. If it can stop your roommate’s sketchy friend from high school from convincing you to take a sip of mystery jungle juice that’s been hanging around in the back of his fridge since last month, it can definitely stop lanternflies from plopping eggs where they don’t belong. Sometimes the best solution to getting rid of unwanted nuisance is the simplest — no squashing required.

Image Credits: Parker Johnson