Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation this week received a $75,000 grant from the state to help combat an invasive beetle infestation in the Phillips Preserve forest in Tisbury.
Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation this week received a $75,000 grant from the state to help combat an invasive beetle infestation in the Phillips Preserve forest in Tisbury.
State conservation officials have made plans to cut down a stand of pest-ridden pine trees in the northwestern section of the Manuel F. Correllus state forest, after finding an infestation of the southern pine beetle earlier this summer.
Rapidly, at a pace of 10 feet per day, an infection of southern pine beetle is spreading in the pitch pine forest at Sheriff’s Meadow’s Phillips Preserve near Lake Tashmoo.
The small, light-colored beetles flitting across the sand on a stretch of south shore beach on Martha’s Vineyard had long crawled under the radar. But when Tim Simmons saw several such beetles on an August day in 1989, he started to celebrate.
Northeastern beach tiger beetles on Martha’s Vineyard have survived hurricanes and northeasters, parasitic moths and erosion. But there is yet another threat: tiger beetle collectors.
