Bark beetles threaten homes and lives in the Ark La Miss area

WEST MONROE, La. (KTVE / KARD)–Louisiana residents are facing a major public safety concern: lots of dead pine trees caused by last summer’s drought and hungry beetles.

Home owners are reaching out to lawmakers for guidance and financial help to remove trees from their yards.

Laura Sims is an assistant professor for forest health at Louisiana tech and she is concerned that the drought last summer has opened the door for bark beetles to attack millions of pine trees in the Ark La Miss area.

“As an effect a lot of those trees because stressed and that stress acts as a signal for native bark beetles that are in the area to attack and go in and kill those trees.”

Legislators on Louisiana’s House Emergency Beetle Subcommittee met two weeks ago to try to come up with solutions to the problem, from directing residents to charitable organizations… to asking the governor’s help with federal aid. There have been at least two deaths in Louisiana, once when a dead pine fell on a travel camper and another when one struck a man standing in a parking lot.

Sims explains how the beetles kill a tree.

“So what happens with the pine engraver beetle is the male will go in and dig a hole underneath the bark and it will for a nuptial chamber, then he will start releasing chemicals that will call to the females to come in. Then the females come and lay eggs and dig tunnels through the tree and the larvae feed underneath the bark. When they do that they make all these little tunnels and that cuts off the food supply for the tree.”

Tiny insects causing a huge problem for residents.

No word yet from the governor’s office about state or federal aid to deal with the problem but Sims suggests not putting it off if you have a dead tree threatening your home.