ST. PAUL, Minn. – Come the first of the year, a new pest quarantine
will be put in place to protect Minnesota’s pine forests. The Minnesota
Department of Agriculture (MDA) will implement an exterior state
quarantine for the mountain pine beetle on January 1, 2015. This
quarantine is designed to stop the movement into Minnesota of any wood
potentially infested with mountain pine beetle.
This
insect, which is native to the western United States and Canada, spends
most of its life in the area of a pine tree between the bark and the
wood. The adult beetles can release a pheromone, or natural scent, to
attract other beetles and eventually they may overwhelm the health of
entire stands of pines to the extent they all die off. This makes the
mountain pine beetle one of the most damaging forest insects in North
America.
Recently,
these beetles and their larva have been found by MDA in wood brought
into Minnesota. This quarantine will reduce the risk of the human-aided
movement of the insect from happening again.
