By Cheryl Jahn

Spruce Beetle Epidemic Growing

Jan 11, 2018 | 10:19 AM

PRINCE GEORGE – The Ministry of Forests is visiting communities in the region, talking about the rapidly growing spruce beetle epidemic to the north of us.
“Naturally, spruce beetle populations increase and decrease with time. We’re still hopeful the population will decrease,” explains John Huybers, District Manager of the Prince George Natural Resource District. “But at the same time, we’ve watched four years of unprecedented growth.”
The epidemic has now grown to nearly 350,000 hectares and it is on the move, with pockets discovered recently in the Robson Valley. 
Another challenge is the warmer winters means the beetle is maturing in one year rather than two and that means the beetle reproduces much more quickly.
Residents of this region are accustomed to seeing swaths of red, dead pine trees, but the spruce beetle attack is in stands that contain multiple different species of trees. 
“So what we’re seeing are spots everywhere with some more intense areas of attack that we’re calling the outbreak area,” says Jeanne Robert, Regional Forest Entomologist. “So it’s really difficult to predict if [the epidemic] will go one way or the other, but we’re seeing spots moving all directions.”
And the initial attack on a spruce stand is much more challenging to identify as it takes between 13 and 18 months for the trees to turn red after the initial attack.
But the Ministry says it has formed a partnership with industry to harvest the impacted stands as quickly as it can.