Minnesota begins quarantine to block mountain pine beetles

A new pest quarantine aimed at keeping the destructive mountain pine beetle out of Minnesota goes into effect Jan. 1.

The Minnesota Department of Agriculture's quarantine limits the import of freshly cut pine wood with the bark still on from the 13 states with mountain pine beetle.

Although the beetles are about the size of a grain of sand, they have devoured 45 million acres of pine trees in western North America over the past couple decades — the world's largest forest insect outbreak in recorded history.

On two recent occasions the beetle was found in Minnesota on wood transported from the west. Both times the bugs were already dead.

But even with the quarantine, it may only be a matter of time before the beetle makes it to the state. Warmer winters have allowed it to jump over the Rockies into the jack pine forest of Alberta, Canada. It now has an unimpeded path of pines all the way to Minnesota.