Massive Mountain Bark Beetle Outbreak

image: dead pine trees

The NY Times has published an article today drawing attention to a massive outbreak of Mountain Bark beetles that is killing millions of acres of pine trees in a huge swath all the way from British Columbia to Mexico.

The article states "In the next three to five years, Mr. Kyhl said, virtually all of Colorado’s lodgepole pine trees over five inches in diameter will be lost, about five million acres. “Already in many places, every lodgepole over five inches is dead as far as the eye can see,” he said."

According to the USDA Forrest Service the mountain pine beetle, Dendroctonus ponderosae, severely affects lodgepole pines, sugar pines and ponderosa pines. According to Wikipedia these beetles also affect the limber pines and the Scots pines.

An article in Fast Forward Weekly states ... "Mountain pine beetles are also killing whitebark pines at an unprecedented rate. “They’ve co-evolved with whitebark pine forests for millenia, but this outbreak seems to be more intense than any that we’re aware of in history,” says Murray, adding that climate change appears to be “the leading culprit.”