Something is eating the salal

I'm not sure what this is yet - I believe it is a fly larvae. These buggers were definitely alive- they didn't like bright light and wiggled away when placed in the sun. Quite large areas of the salal in this forest were infested, the leaves often having 3 or 4 larvae. I'm not sure if it will kill the plants or is just unsightly. If it's simply unsightly maybe we need to infect more.... apparently salal poaching for the overseas floral trade is becoming a problem in our forests. Not that salal is in any way not abundant... many forest hikes here are on trails that are a canyon in the salal, but stripping the forests bare is never a good idea, and there's a permitting process for a reason.