Many residents in Bismarck woke up this morning to the sound of a plane flying fairly low, which was due to cankerworms.

Planes sprayed areas of the community with bacterial spray referred to as BTK.

The Forester for the City says the spray is meant to only eliminate the insects. There is no harm to people, pets, birds or other animals.

The city typically treats trees for the species every 10 to 12 years whenever they see a rise in numbers.

“The population tends to increase pretty dramatically and we’ve observed that over the past couple years we’ve been seeing more damage from cankerworms. And the forestry division has been monitoring. And this spring we saw really high numbers of adult females,” shared Doug Wiles, the Forester for the City of Bismarck.

He also says this is a one time job. The last time they treated for cankerworms was in 2008.