LAST YEAR, THREE of my balsam fir trees looked awful—brown needles, tunnels in the bark, piles of sawdust near the roots. A local arborist identified a sawyer longhorn beetle infestation. Unless we cut down the trees—which were dead—the beetles could kill neighbouring ones too.
We’d seen these creepy insects before—many, but not all, longhorn beetles are native to Canada. Only some longhorns—including some native species—damage trees, and usually only trees already under stress, says David Dutkiewicz, the entomology technician for the Invasive Species Centre in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. “Healthy trees have defences against beetle infestations, but there’s no way to prevent the beetles from attacking stressed trees,” he says. In fact, trees affected by lightning, heavy snow load, or drought release a stress scent the beetles can detect. Sawyer longhorn…
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Cottage Life (Digital) - 1 Issue, May 2024