Wharton State Forest trees felled to battle Southern pine beetle
The battle of the Pinelands has begun. New Jersey state foresters started cutting down trees this week in Wharton State Forest as part of an effort to beat back an invasion by the Southern pine beetle.
The battle of the Pinelands has begun.
New Jersey state foresters started cutting down trees this week in Wharton State Forest as part of an effort to beat back an invasion by the Southern pine beetle.
The insect - Dendroctonus frontalis - devoured a record 14,000 acres of South Jersey pines last year. It has devastated 26,000 acres since 2001.
It "is a major threat to our unique Pinelands region," said Bob Martin, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection. "We need residents and private owners of forest lands to help us look out for this pest and report any infestations."
Teams from the New Jersey Forest Fire Service and Division of Parks and Forestry began cutting trees near Quaker Bridge Road in Wharton State Forest, and will be working on pines near Route 563 in the Chatsworth area of the Pinelands next week.
"They were working in a small area, like a hot spot, where the beetles were active," DEP spokesman Larry Hajna said this week.
The horizontal position of the felled trees disorients the larvae and beetles, preventing them from spreading to new areas, officials said.
Foresters leave a portion of standing dead trees that no longer house beetles to provide habitat for checkered beetles and woodpeckers, two predators of the Southern pine beetle.
The control effort will spread from "Wharton State Forest, by far the largest state forest in New Jersey," state forester Lynn Fleming said. "Then, with weekly monitoring, foresters will continue to identify areas in need of suppression and consider the best treatment options."
But certified forester Bob Williams said this week that the effort was "a day late and a dollar short."
"What we need is some emergency action where people who have a beetle problem don't have to go through the regulatory maze to get a forestry permit" to cut down infested trees, said Williams, vice president of forestry operations for Land Dimensions Engineering, a Glassboro firm that manages tens of thousands of acres of private forested land.
"If there's a forest fire, the state will show up in hours and begin bulldozing trees because it's an emergency," he said. "This is an emergency, too. But you have to wait 30 days, six months, or two years to get a permit."
The regulatory process discourages forest stewardship, said Williams, who first detected the beetle in significant numbers in Millville in 2001.
What the state has done so far "won't solve the problem," he said. "It's like giving Tylenol to someone who has stage-four cancer. We need an action plan."
The DEP has been coordinating its efforts with the New Jersey Pinelands Commission, Fleming said. State officials are conducting scientific surveys using traps to gauge how serious the infestation will be this year.
Foresters already are observing damage, leading to concerns that this year's problem will be as bad as or worse than last year's, Fleming said.
The Southern pine beetle has been active for many years in the Southeastern United States. It tends to prefer warmer climates; very cold winters usually keep its numbers lower here.
Last summer's record-high temperatures coupled with drought put stress on the trees and allowed beetle outbreaks to advance, officials said. To determine the extent of infestation, New Jersey foresters surveyed South Jersey forests through aerial surveys, on-site observations, and traps.
State lands affected include Wharton State Forest, Belleplain State Forest, Parvin State Park, Peaslee Fish and Wildlife Management Area, Millville Wildlife Management Area, Tuckahoe Wildlife Management Area, and Union Lake Wildlife Management Area.
Infested pines have been detected in Atlantic, Cape May, and Cumberland Counties, which also have been affected in past years. This year's outbreak has spread as far north as upper Ocean County, which had been previously unaffected, and could reach forests in nine counties.
Landowners should take action to identify and eliminate the spread of the beetles, Fleming said. "We need everyone's help in trying to keep this pest under control as much as possible," she said.
Williams said the state must take the lead, though. "Cutting a few trees to address the most serious insect and disease problem we ever had in the Pinelands is absurd," he said.