VICTORIA, British Columbia, March 1 (UPI) -- Millions of acres of Canadian forests are being killed by swarms of mountain pine beetles in the largest insect infestation in North American history.
The beetles -- thriving in the Earth's increasingly warm environment -- are killing more trees than wildfires or logging and now are reported in an area three times the size of the state of Maryland, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.
Allan Carroll, a research scientist at the Pacific Forestry Center in Victoria, told the Post: "People say climate change is something for our kids to worry about. No. It's now."
U.S. Forest Service officials are also watching the Canadian beetle outbreak, although the United States is less vulnerable since it has fewer lodgepole pine forests, the newspaper said.
The beetle populations have, historically, been controlled by winters, with early cold snaps or long killing spells of 20 degrees below zero, experts said. Now, for more than a decade, winter conditions have not been sufficiently cold to kill the beetles.
Canadian officials estimate the beetles have infested 21 million acres and killed 411 million cubic feet of trees.
