SEATTLE – The Hiram M. Chittenden Locks in Ballard are famous for connecting Seattle's lakes to Puget Sound and they are also home to one of the area's most famous gardens. But now the person in charge of that garden is worried.

Gardener Michelle McMorran noticed bugs destroying one of the garden's dogwood shrubs.

"These are babies starting to get their white, fuzzy covering, I guess," she said.

There is nothing cuddly about these babies.

Meet the dogwood soft fly.

Entomologist Todd Murray of the WSU Extension Office says when a non-native pest like this come along, it might just mean there goes the neighborhood.

"When these insects show up, they show up often without their natural enemies," he said.

Other insects and birds don't know about them so they don't eat them. That gives these little guys a free pass to eat and destroy dogwoods inside and outside this garden.

If nothing is done, gardeners say the dogwood soft fly would just take all of the leaves completely off the trees, so the plan is to beat them to it.

McMorran plans to cut the shrub down below the leaf line and hope it grows back pest-free.

Experts like that plan more than the chemical approach.

The dogwood soft fly is just one of a growing number of dangerous invaders.

Entomologists worry that could prompt widespread pesticide use which threatens the native species. They say eventually birds and bigger bugs will catch on that this new food source is here and start eating dogwood soft flies. But until then, they could do some serious damage.