A spruce bark beetle infestation that began a few years ago in Southcentral Alaska is spreading in Anchorage, taking out hundreds of acres of trees, arborists and forest scientists say.

(Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon) Along with the tourist crowds ... “Whether it’s objectively a problem depends on whether you’re a spruce beetle or not, I suppose,” Roland said.

The beetles are native to Alaska and in low numbers prefer old ... Pesticides are available to protect trees from spruce beetle attack, but they don't work on trees that are already infested.

Interior Alaska is home to the same species of tree ... have observed spikes in spruce beetle populations at intervals of every 30-50 years. In Southcentral, the last one took place in the mid ...

New way to spot beetle-killed spruce can help forest, wildfire managers Date: June 13, 2024 Source: University of Alaska Fairbanks Summary: A new machine-learning system can automatically produce ...

Spruce beetle damage in Southcentral Alaska. (Map courtesy of United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service.) Stuart Leidner, Superintendent of the State Parks Mat-Su/Copper Basin Area ...

The U.S. Forest Service and other partner organizations will be undertaking mitigation efforts for spruce beetle-killed trees around the Seward Ranger District of the Chugach National Forest ...

The majority of Alaska’s bird species are now at least ... In the 1990s, a devastating spruce beetle outbreak and wildfire felled almost a million acres of spruce. A grass called bluejoint ...

Bark beetle-infested spruce trees begin to dry out already before any visible signs of tree mortality appear, a recent study shows. Bark beetle-infested spruce trees begin to dry out already ...

That's critical as the beetle infestation spreads. The Alaska Division of Forestry and Fire Protection calls the spruce beetle "the most damaging insect in Alaska's forests." The identification ...

A new machine-learning system developed at the University of Alaska Fairbanks can automatically produce detailed maps from satellite data to show locations of likely beetle-killed spruce trees in ...