Video: How the Pine Beetle Ravaged B.C.

How, exactly, does the B.C. mountain pine beetle kill a tree? It has more to do with licking and mold than you might have thought. Click at left for our animated tour.

There’s been a lot of talk about the mountain pine beetle’s laying waste to British Columbia’s forests, but few people actually know how the critter goes about its destructive task. The story, like so many, begins with innocent licking. But it ends, if you’re a pine tree, in utter ruin. For a different angle on the story, go to the Spring issue of Granville, and Dorothy Bartoszewski’s “The bug that ate B.C.” E-mail the illustrator, Laura Morrison.