Spruce budworm is one of the most damaging native insects affecting spruce and fir trees in Canada so the better we understand its biology, the better we understand the impacts it has on our forests.
Natural Resources Canada’s Canadian Forest Service is looking for citizen scientists to help in a summertime project to track the spread of the spruce budworm moth in our area.
The goal of the program is to understand the migration of the insect across the landscape and to get citizens thinking about the insects that live in the forest and the role they play in the ecosystem.
"During an outbreak, spruce budworm kills large areas of forest resulting in significant consequences for the tourism and forest industries. Current predictions indicate that a large-scale outbreak of the spruce budworm may develop in Ontario in the next few years," says a news release from the organization.
"This project will help researchers and forest managers better understand how populations of the insects grow, change and move across the landscape through the use of a collaborative, multi-province initiative and early intervention strategy."
A website has been developed specifically for this project www.budwormtracker.ca or you can call 506 452-3507.
In 2016, The Budworm Tracker program achieved 85% percent return rate from its citizen scientists. Organizers are hoping to maintain or exceed last year’s success rate in this year’s tracking season.
