Researcher talks tent caterpillars ahead of upcoming season
Tent caterpillars may look like creepy crawlies but they're part of northern Ontario's ecosystem
You may see more or less tent caterpillars this spring depending on where you live in northern Ontario.
Chris MacQuarrie, a research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service in Sault Ste. Marie, says that tent caterpillar infestations generally run anywhere from two to four years with three years being the average.
The Sudbury area is heading towards the end of an infestation.
But places like Sault Ste. Marie are in year two and can expect the tent caterpillar situation to be as bad as or worse than last year.
Province-wide, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry has mapped where the tent caterpillars were last year "on the basis of that, you might expect to have some level of tent caterpillar defoliation this year," he said.
According to MacQuarrie, the winter may have killed off some of the insects because they spent the winter in eggs on twigs, exposed to the cold temperatures.
"That might have a mitigating effect on the population across northern Ontario, but we won't really know until the spring when they start hatching," he added.
MacQuarrie has advice for homeowners who want to protect their trees from defoliation by tent caterpillars — if you're willing to examine the branches and do a fair amount of work.
"It would look like somebody had wrapped a little piece of grey styrofoam around the tip of the branch. If you find those, you could cut them off, throw them away, and that would limit the number of caterpillars you might have on your property," said MacQuarrie.
MacQuarrie says that this tactic will work for small trees but big trees present more of a challenge because the egg masses are up high in the tree's canopy.
"Unless you're willing to climb up the tree and shimmy out on the branch and look for those egg masses, you might not be able to do anything about it."
MacQuarrie says that for homeowners, tent caterpillars are more of a temporary nuisance that has to be dealt with every 10 or 15 years for three or four years.
"They almost never kill the tree. They eat the tree early enough in the spring that they usually have a chance to put more leaves back on," explained MacQuarrie.
MacQuarrie sees tent caterpillars as part of the ecosystem, an important food source for birds, and a chance to see nature in action.
With files by Wendy Bird