"Maine wary of budworm outbreak" by Glenn Adams | Associated Press, February 12, 2013
AUGUSTA, Maine — Three decades ago, an insidious pest called the spruce budworm wreaked devastation on Maine’s forests, defoliating millions of acres of the state’s abundant fir and spruce trees until they were dry sticks.
The infestation, which began reaching its worst stages in the late 1970s, prompted a small-scale air war, first with chemicals sprayed from aircraft and later with biological insecticides. At last, by the later 1980s, the budworms went away.
But experts now say the bugs may soon descend upon Maine again....
After a small wave of budworms came and went in the 1950s and ’60s, taking some trees with it, the state was hit by a tsunami of the pests in the 1970s and ’80s. The invasion was taken very seriously by paper companies that owned vast blocks of forests.
That prompted an all-out attack on the budworms, with aircraft laden with chemical insecticides dispatched for much of the day from outposts in northern and eastern Maine to treat an area the size of Connecticut.
The massive operation also touched off howls of protest from residents of those remote regions, who were concerned about the health and environmental effects of the spray program.
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