Canwest News Service
Published: Saturday, November 01, 2008
BANFF, Alta. (CNS) -- Parks Canada plans to help the Alberta government's war against the mountain pine beetle by removing about 1,500 trees attacked by the destructive insect.
Officials say they want to slow the buildup of the beetle population in Banff, thus reducing the number of beetles spreading eastward onto provincial lands.
They say colonized trees will be removed by hand-felling, piling and burning of individual trees between November and April.
Under a regional forest management plan, about 9,000 beetle-colonized trees have been cut down and removed from a containment zone in Banff National Park every year since 2002.
http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/story.html?id=e9ec545a-6e64-4e07-b6b3-177f01cb346d Meet the moutain Pine Beetle:The mountain pine beetle, Dendroctonus ponderosae, is a small insect, less than a centimetre long, which lives most of its life under the bark of pine trees, including lodgepole, ponderosa and western white pine.
Normally these insects play an important role in the life of a forest. They attack old or weakened trees, speeding the development of a younger forest. However, unusual hot, dry summers and mild winters in central British Columbia during the last few years, along with forests filled with mature lodgepole pine, have lead to an epidemic. To date, beetles have destroyed millions of lodgepole pine in BC – the province’s most commercially harvested tree.
http://mpb.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/biology/index_e.html
