Fuchsia Dragon | [email protected]
Jasper’s plague of pine beetles is nearly over as 98 per cent of the tree-killing bugs were wiped out by our bitterly cold winter.
And once the red needles drop, new green forest will naturally regenerate and we will soon see more growth of bushes, ferns, and wildflowers.
A survey of pine beetle numbers was undertaken in May by Natural Resources Canada and the Canadian Forest Service, and the impressive results were sent to Parks Canada.
“The results are better than expected,” said David Argument, a resource conservation manager for Parks.
“The red forest is still on the landscape but there is an end in sight of the area impacted.”
He said the Forest Service described the pine beetles as having a collapsing population.
In late 2018, about 163,000 hectares of pine forest was affected by pine beetles - up from about 93,000 in 2017.
The area will still rise this year as it takes some time for the colour of trees to change after they have been infected.
It is estimated the area will grow to about 200,000 hectares in 2019 but Argument said we will not see that increase happen again next year.
“Some of those survivors may impact or infect trees but not to the level of impact we have seen,” he said.
“It is unfortunate that it will be somewhere over 200,000 hectares of impacted forest and we still have the fire risk issue.”
Argument said the area of affected trees should not change for the foreseeable future but numbers could grow again one day.
And now the pine beetles have been knocked back, we should start seeing healthy green forests regenerating in Jasper over the next five to 10 years.
Argument said: “We had a great success of Pyramid Bench clearing work and people are already starting to see that and enjoy (the) green-up happening.
“Keep in mind that over that area impacted, as soon as the red needles drop we are going to see that green-up happening across the landscape and forest natural regeneration has started.
“The forest of the future is healthier, diverse, green forest.”
