Landowners say there are early indications that a financially funded attempt to contain a spruce budworm outbreak in northern Maine is working.
According to state statistics, more than 240,000 acres of timberland in Aroostook County were treated with pesticides sprayed by planes and helicopters over five days in June.
The native pest spruce budworm occasionally becomes overpopulated. These infestations may cause spruce and fir trees to become damaged or dead, which the hungry bugs then eat.
This was the first year of an early intervention initiative to curb the spread of spruce budworm hotspots, according to Alex Ingraham, President of Pingree Associates.
According to areal assessments, the approach has kept woodlands in the state’s extreme northern regions that border Canada from suffering harm.
“There s green healthy trees in the treatment area and if you go right across the border in Quebec there s the brown and what was red from the defoliation,” Ingraham explained.
Timber businesses are working to prevent a recurrence of the catastrophic budworm outbreak that decimated the woods in north Maine fifty years ago.
A federal contribution totaling $9.8 million was given to seven landowners to finance the spray program. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the pesticides used in the program are specifically made to target caterpillars that are “practically nontoxic” to birds and animals.
According to state statistics, Irving Woodlands received more than $4.3 million in reimbursement for treating the greatest area, which totaled over 106,000 acres.
The early intervention program in Maine is based on a similar initiative in New Brunswick that has prevented a significant budworm outbreak for ten years.
However, Ingraham stated that it will require millions of dollars per year to achieve a comparable level of commitment in Maine. He said that the cost is still less than allowing budworm to go out of hand and endanger the state’s economy and forest health.
“The cost of treating it is much less than the economic consequence of doing nothing. According to Ingraham, “in orders of magnitude.”
