Bugs' Life CHARLES BURY
Canadian sawmill operators, truckers, scientists, and customs inspectors are working together to combat a couple of illegal immigrants from overseas -- two otherwise harmless insects which threaten to ruin the country's huge and lucrative lumber industry.
Both culprits are beetles -- voracious wood-eaters. And both came to North America by mistake.
One of them attacks softwood trees, the other hardwoods. One is here now, eating its way through pine groves in the Eastern Townships. The other is not far behind.
Probably the more dangerous of the two insect invaders is the Asian Long-Horned Beetle from China. It peers menacing over the U.S. border at Canada's $11 billion hardwood lumber industry and, if unchecked, could eventually wipe out the sugar maple tree, historic symbol of Canadian identity.
The other boat beetle, the Eurasian Common Pine Shoot Beetle, has already hitchhiked its way into the Townships along with its huge appetite for conifers.
Within the Byzantine structure of the federal government it's neither the Canadian Wildlife Service nor the Canadian Forest Service that protect the country's woodlands from hungry beetles and other insect threats, but rather the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. An agency of Agriculture Canada, CFIA is responsible for many things other than food -- including the identification, tracking, and suppression of any unwanted insects which may enter Canada.
Though no Asian Long-Horned Beetles have yet been found in Canada, they are "a very important problem,&qot; says CFIA supervisor Francine Pépin.
Despite many cases on the go, "This is a number-one priority across the country," Pépin said in an interview from Montreal. "It's a very big danger -- if it this beetle gets into the forest it could wipe out all our sugar maples."
Maple syrup and related products are a $100 million business in Canada, which produces about 80 per cent of the world's supply.
The beetles were discovered in 1996 in the NYC borough of Brooklyn and nearby Amityville, N.Y. In 1998 three more infestations turned up in Chicago, Illinois. Both states neighbour Canada and cross-border traffic is heavy.
Every infected tree must be cut and burned, says scientist Pépin - "You have to level the woods."
Despite an intensive search last summer, the long-horned beetle hasn't yet been discovered in Canada. Customs officers are doing their best to keep it that way but the little black bug doesn't have far to come.
Efforts at eradication are already underway. In both New York and Illinois, state governments are slash-and-burning many thousands of trees - the only practical way to wipe out the beetles, which "tunnel into healthy trunks and branches, eventually killing the tree", and have no known natural predator in North America.
The insect apparently first entered North America on a ship or plane arriving from Asia in New York City. As an Agriculture Canada fact sheet puts it, they "bore into trees used in the manufacture of cargo crating in China and emerge at export destinations."
As well as maples, the blue-black, inch-long (2.5 - 3.5 cm) long-horned thrives on various species of poplar, willow, birch, elm, ash, horse chestnut, mulberry, plum, pear, and other leafy trees and shrubs.
Both Canada and the U.S. have imposed bans on wooden packaging from China unless the importer can prove all the wood was heat-treated in a prescribed manner to kill any beetles it might contain.
"It's not a long process," says veteran Canada Customs Inspector Michel Lalonde. "If they don't have papers to prove the wood has been heat-treated, it doesn't get in."
Lalonde is stationed at Rock Island so he doesn't see much traffic from China. But he is definitely a front-line soldier in Canada's war against the Common Pine Shoot Beetle, another tree-eater which comes from Eurasia.
After first entering North America via the Great Lakes, probably aboard a ship from Europe, the pine beetle was found in 1992 in a Scots Pine Christmas tree plantation near Cleveland, Ohio. By the end of that year it was reported in six Great-Lake states, and by 1993 it was munching away on pine trees in seven counties across the lakes in Ontario.
Last summer two of the beetles were found in traps in the Townships, near La Patrie and St-Malo, two border villages southeast of Sawyerville. "This year we did more trapping, mostly near the border." says Pépin.
The result: Adult pine-shoot beetles were found in traps from St-Ignace de Stanbridge in the Richelieu watershed to Lake Megantic on the Chaudiére - spanning the entire region.
Forester Jean Poirier is the Eastern Townhips; fieldman for the Quebec Ministry of Natural Resources. While the beetles themselves aren't always visible, Poirier says, the damage they do is easy to see.
At this time of year the beetles are hibernating in this year's growth, the tender new shoots at the tips of branches. But don't look up - look down.
"The best was to tell if you've got pine-shoot beetles is by looking on the ground under your pine trees, Poirier says. "Look for new stems which have fallen on the ground. If the stems are hollow you have the beetles, because that's what they eat."
Adults winter under the bark at the base of living trees, reports the Canadian Food Inspection Agency website. In April the adults will bore our from under the bark and look for suitable brooding spots, mostly in dead or damaged trees and fresh stumps. Females can fly several kilometres to find a spot to lay their eggs.
"Once a site is located the female will mate and lay eggs in an egg gallery that she tunnels out beneath the inner bark and the cambium of the tree. The egg gallery may reach 25 cm (10 inches) in length."
Mature larvae pupate and emerge as adults between July and October. They then fly out to the new growth at the tips.
"The adult may damage between two and six shoots. This is the most destructive stage of the life cycle with damaged shoots turning yellow, drooping and eventually falling off the tree. Trees of all sizes are attacked. In late October to November the adult beetles move down the tree to the base of the trunk where they bore into the bark" and start the process over again.
Scots pine is the common Pine-Shoot Beetle's favourite host but it will also infest Red, White, Jack, and Austrian Pine, as well as spruce, fir, and eastern larch (tamarack).
CFIA's Francine Pépin says the pine-shoot beetle probably arrived in the Townships by falling off a log truck. Instead of an absolute ban, officials are trying an ecological-economic attack.
We are applying our controls according to the biological calendar and in conjunction with the United States."
"We could just outlaw pine logs period," she said. "That would have only closed the sawmills. Instead, people in the business can't import any pine logs from problem areas, and and logs they do bring in, they must debark them quickly."
"It could become a big problem for Christmas tree growers," says forester Poirier. "If you find them you can't ship them beyond the affected region."
Back at the border, the pine-log ban works both ways.
"We won't allow in any pine with the bark on it from New York State and Essex and Orleans counties in Vermont," says Canada Customs watchdog Michel Lalonde. On the other side of the line, he adds, "The U.S. is refusing any pine logs if you don't have a permit."
No one can say how much will this hurt the important Townships lumber trade.
The Common Pine-Shoot Beetle is definitely "here to stay," concludes chief insect fighter Pépin. "But we don't know at what price." Charlie Bury is a freelance writer based in Birchton, Quebec.
Copyright © 1999 Charles Bury/Log Cabin Chronicles/12.99 |