Alberta's Winter Not Enough To Stop Pine Beetle Outbreak In Boreal Forest - Not Enough Early Cold

[hatrack]

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - This past winter did not provide the bitter cold needed to kill the infestation of mountain pine beetles in the forests of the western Canadian province of Alberta, so human efforts must continue, officials said on Tuesday.

The risk of the beetle's spread remains highest in northwest Alberta, making it likely it will eventually reach Canada's huge boreal forests, although its tree-killing march east becomes more difficult because there are fewer pine trees to infest.

The Rocky Mountains of southwestern Alberta are also infested, and the area remains under threat from bugs flying east across the border from infested forests in British Columbia, officials said.

Nature has historically controlled the beetle population with early winter cold snaps that kill them before they are ready for a deep freeze. Up to 97 percent of the insects have to be killed to stop their spread. "Clearly that level of mortality was not achieved in some of the areas of Alberta this year," said Allan Carroll of the Canadian Forest Service.

EDIT

http://ca.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idCATRE56D6SD20090714

[rockymountaindem]

1. Those bastards have royally wrecked a lot of Colorado forest

I was kind of disparing about it until I read an article in the Denver Post that said botanists agree that because the "pine beetle" can't eat fir or spruce trees, although many lodgepole pines will die, we can replant the forest with Douglas Fir and Colorado Blue Spruce throughout the future and still have forest. It's going to be a difficult transition though, I suppose.