The worst-hit areas appear to be established neighborhoods with older spruce trees, especially in Turnagain and Spenard.
A lot of people are complaining about the wasps this year. They are actually very beneficial insects in some ways. These are very beneficial insects. They gather other insects to feed their larvae and thus control aphid populations, take out delphinium defoliators and other leaf rollers.
In Southcentral Alaska, wasps seem to be everywhere. One Anchorage clinic has seen more than 250 sting patients this year.
Beetles that killed millions of acres of trees in the 1990s were a first sign of climate change. In a new flare-up, they continue marching north as Alaska warms.
The closures of the campgrounds, facing the threat of falling trees, likely will last through summer, the state parks division said.
Dead, red trees signal an increasingly dire outbreak driven by warm summers and plentiful spruce, especially in the Susitna Valley.
There is a spruce beetle outbreak in Southcentral Alaska. Since the beetles don't emerge for a few weeks, we might as well start thinking about the problem.
The No. 1 problem is ticks, according to Gerlach. Different tick species have been turing up in recent years in Alaska, apparently because they now are able to live and thrive in the current warmer climate around the circumpolar north.
A foliage disease epidemic that killed shore pines near 10 Mile and other areas around Haines appears to have subsided, according to a U.S. Forest
In New England where ticks have decimated moose, the average tick load is 40,000, and some have been found with 90,000.
Dr. Kimberlee Beckmen, the sole veterinarian with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, has investigated 48 tick infestations in the past three years. Shes found evidence that two exotic species are established and reproducing in Alaska.
Winter tick has been found in over 50 percent of the mule deer examined by wildlife officials in the Whitehorse area and is also found on moose, caribou, and elk in the Yukon
Interior Alaskas hot and dry summer of 2013, coupled with an invasion of insect pests, has taken a steep toll on the regions birch trees, experts say.
The latest tally of beetle kill shows more than 550,000 acres of forest with dead spruce from the ongoing infestation this year alone, much of it in Mat-Su.
Each spring, it seems, the air of Alaska is filled with the buzz of mosquitoes and the whines of people declaring that this is undoubtedly the worst bug season they've ever experienced. This year they may have a case.
The 2017 Mount Marathon races were run under cloudy skies and damp conditions. A man swats at bugs that swarmed at the top of Mount Marathon during the race Tuesday, July 4, 2017 in Seward.
The outlook for blueberries in Southcentral Alaska this year is bleak, scientists say. The reason: Two species of moth have damaged berry patches, as well as native deciduous trees, from the southern Kenai Peninsula to Mat-Su.
In Anchorage, the city logged 68 bed bug complaints in 2013, a decrease from the 84 in 2012. There was just one complaint in 2007 and 2008 combined, according to city data.
Nunavut is not prepared to deal with the impacts of climate change and doesn't have a plan to deal with them, according to the latest report by Canada's auditor general.
The discovery in the Cairngorms is only the eighth time a cow wheat shieldbug has been recorded in Scotland.
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