Bugs can be pests. Some may get into your food. Others might bite. One creepy crawler is stirring up trouble in North America. There are millions of mountain pine beetles chowing down on forests across that continent. And the bugs are killing tons of trees.

Mountain pine beetles are about the size of a grain of rice. But don’t let their tiny size fool you. These critters can cause big damage. Millions of these beetles are chewing through areas such as Alberta, Canada. Experts believe the bugs could kill more than half of the pine trees in British Columbia, Canada, by the end of this year.

The insects chew through the bark of pine trees. Then, they release pheromones. Those chemicals can attract thousands of other beetles to a tree. The bugs use the tree as a spot to lay eggs.

Experts are working to squash the problem. But it definitely isn’t easy. The pests have already affected more than 5 million acres of trees in Alberta. That is an area equal to nearly 5 million football fields! The only way to get a hold on the outbreak is to cut down the trees. Then, burning the wood destroys any bugs left.

Chopping down trees may be necessary, but it causes other problems too. Many businesses that sell wood are suffering. They cannot harvest trees that are infested. This deforestation also causes issues for wildlife. Animals such as caribou call these forests home. The beetles are destroying their habitat.

There is one issue experts can’t control on their own. That is climate change. The main reason these beetles have been able to take over is due to our warming climate. Cold temperatures usually keep the beetle populations under control. But as our planet warms up, some mountain pine beetles seem to be having more babies than normal. This causes populations of the pests to grow.

Scientists will continue working to control the damage. The experts will keep trying to grow the population of healthy trees and shrink the population of this bug.


Updated August 18, 2020, 5:02 P.M. (ET)
By Alexa Tirapelli