Colorado faces spruce beetle outbreak

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — An outbreak of spruce beetles continues to accelerate across hundreds of square miles of new forest in Colorado, although a much larger outbreak of the similar mountain pine beetle continues to slow across Wyoming, Colorado and the Black Hills, according to a new survey by the U.S. Forest Service.

Every year, the Forest Service conducts an aerial survey of forests in Colorado, Wyoming and South Dakota. The 2013 survey shows spruce beetles spreading to ever-larger expanses of new forest in Colorado for a fifth consecutive year.

Spruce beetles infested 338 square miles of previously unaffected Colorado forest last year. The beetles laid claim to 286 square miles of new forest in 2012.

In 2008, spruce beetles were active in a total of about 95 square miles of forest in Colorado. One reason spruce beetles are spreading in Colorado is the state's large numbers of aging, weaker trees of the species they're adapted to infest.

"In Colorado, there's a great deal of susceptible hosts — old, mature spruce stands," Brian Howell, regional aerial survey program manager for the Forest Service, said Thursday.

Also, recent Colorado blowdowns — massive numbers of trees simultaneously blown over by storms — might have provided spruce beetles with good places to reproduce in numbers large enough to become a threat to trees still live and standing.

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