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Moths Join Beetle In Killing Colorado Trees

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Dec 17, 2008 8:56 pm US/Mountain

Moths Join Beetle In Killing Colorado Trees

Written by Paul Day
Reporting
Paul Day
SEDALIA, Colo. (CBS4) ― Even now in December, the Douglas firs and Ponderosa pines should be dark green, but instead thousands and thousands are a sickening color of grey.

The sight of so many defoliated trees is hard to take even for a professional.

"There's always a gut reaction of, 'Oh my gosh, the trees are dying,'" said Sheryl Costello, an entomologist with the U.S Forest Service.

The bug expert explains the trees are being chewed up -- not by a beetle -- but a moth, the Tussock moth.

The scene is west of Sedalia in Douglas County in the Pike National Forest. It is the latest outbreak in a cycle that seems to peak every 12 to 13 years, according to Costello.

Back in the summer of 1995, Douglas County homeowners resorted to spraying pesticide against Tussock moth caterpillars as they invaded from the nearby national forest. It was a desperate bid to save prized trees on private property.

"I'm hoping the few that are around here will come to life again and it will look like a forest rather than of a creep show," homeowner Bob Blonde said in 1995.

The 1995 infestation of Tussock moth eventually impacted 20,000 acres. But the current outbreak is more localized and smaller, only about 1,500 acres.

The Moth has a different biology than the mountain pine beetle which has devastated more than 1.5 million acres in western Colorado and is still out of control. Thanks to natural predators (a virus and a moth eating fly), the latest Tussock invaders have apparently peaked.

Costello says there's another reason the current infestation is in decline.

"They tend to eat themselves out of house and home," she said.

The damage done already is obvious to anyone using Highway 67 to reach Rampart Range Road.

At least the moth is no longer a threat in Douglas County, and there's more good news. Costello says the tree eating pest doesn't always kill. She expects some of the currently grey firs and pines will begin to sprout new needles come spring.

(© MMX CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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