- that's the warning Vernon city councillors got at Monday's meeting. Dr. Mike Carlson with the BC Forest Service says, Vernon has to act quickly to protect several hundred heritage trees before they're infested by pine beetles. Carlson is recommending the city follow Kelowna's example and wrap tree trunks with window screen material to prevent the beetles from getting under the bark. Carlson says trees should be wrapped with window screening by April in order to stop infestation. He says it's a lot cheaper to protect trees from the beetle than it is to remove them once they've been infested and killed by the bug. ------------------------------------------
The mountain pine beetle, Dendroctonus ponderosae, is a small insect, less than a centimetre long, which lives most of its life under the bark of pine trees, including lodgepole, ponderosa and western white pine. Normally these insects play an important role in the life of a forest. They attack old or weakened trees, speeding the development of a younger forest. However, unusual hot, dry summers and mild winters in central British Columbia during the last few years, along with forests filled with mature lodgepole pine, have lead to an epidemic. To date, beetles have destroyed millions of lodgepole pine in BC – the province’s most commercially harvested tree. 
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