Environment
Invasive pest hurts state timber sales
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By LACEE SHEPARD
Capital news Service
LANSING – The devastating spread of the emerald ash borer shows no sign of slowing and it is causing the pace of timber sales to quicken. Timber sales are important for their contribution to the timber based industry as well as the welfare Michigan residents, according to the Department of Natural Resources. Michigan started seeing an infestation of emerald ash borer in 2002, said Doug Heym, a DNR timber sales specialist. The insect is a beetle that efficiently eats the layer below bark, causing a lack of nutrients, or girdles a tree, leading to its death. “Eggs are laid on the bark of ash trees, and when the eggs hatch the larva under the bark and they eat the cambium layer of the tree,” said Heym.