Beetles ‘Beyond Human Control’ BLM Official Says

We wrote last week about The Bureau of Land Management’s efforts to handle a huge outbreak of bark beetles in Fremont County. Spruce beetles have spread across huge areas of southwest Colorado, and the BLM’s Ken Reed says that for now, there’s no stopping them.

“At this point in time at least what I’m seeing on the ground the population is beyond human control,” he said. "I’ve watched them go from five trees, to fifty trees, to hundreds of trees, and this year it’s actually getting hard to find a large spruce tree that doesn’t have beetles.”

While spruce beetles are still spreading in Colorado, the mountain pine beetle epidemic is winding down. At its peak in 2008, the pine beetle had affected more than a million acres in the state.