By Canadian Press

A POSITIVE TO EXTREME COLD

Cold snap helpful in the fight against mountain pine beetle

Jan 21, 2020 | 6:57 AM

EDMONTON- Albertans may have survived last week’s extreme cold, but experts are hoping mountain pine beetles did not.

Temperatures in Jasper, Hinton and Sundre — key battlegrounds in the fight against pine beetles — dipped below -40 a couple of times during the recent cold spell.

University of Alberta biological sciences professor Janice Cooke says early projections show it might have been enough to kill more than 95% of pine beetle larvae.

Caroline Whitehouse, a forest health specialist for Alberta’s Ministry of Forestry, says it typically takes a few years of large-scale cold events to cause notable mortality rates in pine beetles.

(CTV)

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