Parts of the North Cascades and Mount Baker are facing an outbreak of the western spruce budworm, aerial surveys reveal.
The outbreak is still early and, compared with past events, modest in size at around 63,500 acres. Nonetheless, the budworm’s outbreak in Western Washington is causing some figurative head scratching for Glenn Kohler, an entomologist with the Washington Department of Natural Resources.
It’s not unheard of, but it’s really unusual,” he said. “In the last 20 to 30 years, we haven’t seen much western spruce budworm outside of the Cascade crest.”…