More infected lodgepole pines than expected in Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park has caused the provincial government to extend mountain pine beetle surveys. The province will add $100,000 to an already $200,000 budget  to perform surveys between now and March 31 to see how large the problem is. Great Western Forestry Ltd. will locate infected trees in the park and mark them for crews to cut and burn.
According to Dr. Rory McIntosh, a provincial forest entomologist and pathologist, surveys from the last five years have shown an increase of infected trees soaring to about 170 trees in 2010.
McIntosh says at the moment the outbreak seems to be relatively slow. Looking at the last outbreak in 1980, 126 trees were infested. The following year that number increased to 767. In 1982 the number of infected trees was recorded at 2,222.
"It collapsed quite rapidly after that. In 1985 it was complete, it had collapsed all together," said McIntosh. "It was a combined effort of management action and some very lucky weather that resulted in the collapse of that outbreak."
Ministry of Environment specialists have been using pheromone traps to maintain a beetle count at the park. Air and ground surveys were initiated in 2005-06 because of an elevated number of beetles caught in traps.
Rotary wing air surveys of all susceptible pine trees are conducted at the park. Surveyors identify red trees from the air and then ground crews verify if they were killed by mountain pine beetles.
"One of the challenges with mountain pine beetle is the best way to survey is from the air and the only way you can really identify attacked trees is once they are dead and the beetles are out of them," said McIntosh. "What you are actually seeing when you see the red is where the beetle was last year."
McIntosh thinks about 250 trees in the park will be marked for burning this year. In 2010, 209 infected trees were burned.
Last year, Great Western Forestry Ltd. was contracted to complete surveys in the boreal forests of northern Saskatchewan and the Cypress Hills. The northern surveys, which were completed on Sept. 19, yielded no mountain pine beetles. A higher-than-expected number of infected trees in Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park has led the ministry to extend the survey period.
"Insect and disease surveys provide critical information to plan an effective and timely response, in co-operation with other jurisdictions," Environment Minister Dustin Duncan said. "In the Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park, a unique landscape we share with Alberta, the extended contract will ensure that all needed work can be completed."
The pine beetles are considered a natural part of the Cypress Hills ecosystem.
Beetles attack trees by boring into the bark and laying eggs in the phloem layer of the tree. Then they release pheromones to attract other beetles.
Mountain pine beetles can kill a tree in about one year.  The beetles leave behind a blue-stain fungi which kills the tree by preventing it from drawing water and circulating it to branches and leaves.
The mass attack of thousands of beetles attacking the tree at the same time carrying with them the blue-stain fungus slows the flow of sap, says McIntosh.
Typically mountain pine beetle outbreaks have been limited by climate and weather. They usually prefer lodgepole pine trees as hosts, but have been known to infect jack pines as well.
McIntosh believes the Cypress Park population is connected to a wider regional outbreak.
"If you look at the outbreak that's occurring in British Columbia spreading into Alberta in the north, this pattern the beetles in Cypress are following a little bit of a lag after that," he said. The outbreak is also partly due to fewer extreme cold weather events that would normally kill beetles, the availability of susceptible pines, and elevated winter survival.
McIntosh says specialists hope to collect data on pine beetle populations in Montana and Idaho.
"Montana and Idaho are two of the states that have sustained the highest mountain pine beetle outbreaks  in the United States," he said. McIntosh has gathered anecdotal evidence from local ranchers from Frontier and other border towns on the east and south edges of the Cypress Hills. Individuals have described the attacks by mountain pine beetles.
"So there is some anecdotal evidence that there are some beetles dispersing in from probably further away. I think once the outbreaks decline in Montana and Idaho, .... those sort of events are going to diminish."