As scientists continued to monitor the state’s forests in advance of another battle with the voracious spruce budworm, data gathered this summer show that there were far fewer of the insects on the landscape this summer than a year before.
That’s the good news.
The bad news: That doesn’t mean another outbreak that could defoliate spruce and fir trees isn’t looming.
“I don’t think it changes our predictions,” Dave Struble, the state entomologist for the Maine Forest Service, said. “It may set [an outbreak] back a year.” read more >>
