EDMONTON — A massive and uncontrollable buildup of mountain pine beetles in Jasper National Park is starting to explode into commercially valuable forests along its boundaries.
Foresters along the park’s edge have seen a tenfold increase in beetle infestation in just months, and some scientists wonder if Parks Canada could have done more to control the invasion a few years ago.
“They decided to consider the pine beetle a ‘native disturbance agent,’” said Allan Carroll, who has studied the beetles since the late 1990s and directs the University of British Columbia’s Forest Science program. ”In other words, Jasper was not intending to do much about it.”
In an emailed statement, Parks Canada said it has had a beetle management plan for the park since 2015 that includes prescribed burns and tree removal.
Too little, too late, said Carroll.
“Just that hesitation intrinsic to producing a management plan precluded any effective outcomes.”
West Fraser Timber manages about 13,000 square kilometres along the park’s eastern edge and runs a large mill in the town of Hinton just outside the boundary. The company removed about 40,000 bug-infested trees last year.
That number has grown.
“The number that we have been told for this area is around half a million trees,” said Richard Briand, West Fraser’s woodland manager.
For years, the park and forests to the east and south of it missed the worst of the beetle infestations that ravaged British Columbia and southern and northern Alberta. Cold kept them out.
In northern Alberta, the bugs were able to avoid severe alpine temperatures by flying east over some of the lowest elevations in the Rockies. In the south, the mountains are high but the invaders benefited from warmer temperatures.
Several unusually warm winters finally allowed the beetles to breach Jasper’s defences. They thrived in the park’s large, mature pine forests.
In 2014, beetle activity went from a few spots around Jasper’s townsite to rampant, said Carroll. And it’s worsened ever since.