Scientists with the U.S. Forest Service believe that the blackheaded budworm, whose numbers surged over the past three years, is now in decline.
Last summer’s unusually warm weather fueled an explosion in the western blackheaded budworm, leaving masses of browning trees in many areas of Southeast. The worm, which is the larval stage of the budworm moth, is known to feed on the new growth of trees, leaving them with a brownish-red appearance.
Elodea was discovered in Alexander Lake in 2014 by researchers checking minnow traps. At the time, it covered 20 percent of the lake but now has spread to 90 percent.
Carmichael pointed to a tree that fell across one of the riverside campground spots, taking out a fence. There’s another on the opposite side of the path, branches strewn across an open patch of snow. They’re among the 1,000 high-priority trees the city wants to remove due to safety concerns.
Mills in the heart of Canada's timber industry have fallen quieter this winter as wildfires and infestations made worse by climate change have made vast tracts of once valuable forest into barren stands of dead trees.
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