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August 2, 2000
Where are the beetles?
By Susan LeBlanc -- Halifax Herald
Aug. 01: Group to apply for injunction to halt cutting
July 31:Beetle debate heats up: Halifax
So where's the beetle?
That's what reporters asked as trees started to fall in Point Pleasant Park this
week.
They wanted to see the culprit, the brown spruce longhorn beetle, that is
apparently killing metro trees and forcing the destruction of 10,000 evergreens
in the Halifax park alone.
In two days, about 300 red spruce and other conifers have been cut down in Point
Pleasant, and access to those areas is restricted. Some other trees have come
down outside the park in the past few weeks.
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A woman who declined to give her name peers down
at what appears to be a brown spruce long-horned
beetle. The insect perched on her shoulder near
the incinerator at Point Pleasant Park on
Monday. Tim Krochak / Herald Photo
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But when asked, government officials couldn't produce one of the insects for the
media.
Gregg Cunningham, a plant protection officer with the Canadian Food Inspection
Agency, said the insects are nocturnal and can be hard to spot.
The 1 1/2-centimetre-long beetle, tetropium fuscum, has a short lifespan as an
adult. As larvae, it's not visible but lies beneath the bark, chomping the
tree's crucial nutrients and creating tunnel-like galleries.
Mr. Cunningham did point to tiny exit holes the beetle had drilled in the bark,
and he noted telltale sap running down trees, a key sign trees are sick.
The federal-provincial-municipal task force studying the beetle problem has
estimated a million of the insects are there in various life stages. They base
that on the number of beetles that emerged from wood samples in the laboratory.
Opponents of the cut don't buy that. They have offered a tongue-in-cheek reward
to anyone who can find the beetle, which they maintain is not killing trees.
Halifax scientist Christopher Majka is a member of the citizens group Friends of
Point Pleasant Park. The group hopes to be in court later this week to seek an
injunction halting the cutting.
Mr. Majka said he started poking around in the park after the beetle was
identified as the park's problem this spring.
After examining about 300 trees, the biologist and entomologist found two other
species of longhorn beetles, predator wasps and beetle-loving woodpeckers - but
no tetropium fuscum.
"I can't find a single one of the brown spruce longhorn beetle," he said
Tuesday. "That seems to me suggestive of something."
Mr. Majka said nature seems to be taking care of the European and Asian beetle,
which is believed to have been imported here by mistake about 10 years ago.
Opponents say the task force is acting hastily, and they want to see scientific
evidence to prove the beetle hypothesis.
As trees are downed in Point Pleasant, their outer sheath will be sheared off
and burned on-site. The task force will take away samples for analysis.
Halifax Regional Municipality, which manages the federal land, may try to
salvage the interior of the downed logs and sell the timber, with any revenue
going to park restoration.
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