The swarm flight has been in full swing since last week because of the warm weather. The catch numbers in the monitoring traps with up to 6,000 beetles are high, it was said on Monday after a round table on the bark beetle, to which the Agricultural Minister Michaela Langer-Weninger (ÖVP) had invited.
The round table on the pest was launched in 2018 under her predecessor Max Hiegelsberger, when a hitherto unprecedented level of so-called damaged wood felling was reached in Upper Austria. Two million of the approximately 3.5 million square meters harvested were damaged by the bark beetle, but also by storms and snow pressure. Last year – the spring of 2021 was also rainy – the proportion of damaged harvested wood was around a third at 1.1 million running meters, according to the state councilor.
Sniffer dogs in training
In the next one to two weeks it is particularly important that the forest farmers monitor their stocks closely, appealed to Moser. In order to prevent a mass plague, infested wood must be removed from the forest quickly. To detect possible beetle infestations, tracker dogs are currently being trained at the Federal Research Center for Forests (BFW), informed Klemens Schadauer from the BFW. Two district foresters in Upper Austria are currently training dogs, Moser added.
Source: Nachrichten
