Pest Management Tape | Information & Issues | Kananaskis Outdoors Forum

All the way though K-Country, I see trees that are tagged with Pest Management tape, some in blue, some white, some orange, some pink some in orange and white stripes, some with orange and black stripes, and probably a number of other colours I don't remember.

I'm cutions is anyone knows what the significance of the tape colour is.

While planting trees a few weeks back, I was told by the Alberta Parks guy leading our tree planting efforts that the colour/style of tape is indicative only of the year the tape was put up. In some years, infected trees were marked; in other years, not infected trees in infected areas or patches. Different things were flagged in different years. He told me the tape was supposed to be removed within a couple of years of being put up, as flagged trees were supposed to be revisited over time, but that in fact removing the tape rarely happened. He said he new of places where 8 years of tape was visible.

He noted that if specific single pine beetle infected trees were found, they were burned on the spot (if they were at the correct stage to make burning useful). In those cases, surrounding healthy trees were marked to check to see that the isolated infestation was eliminated.

He noted that in very few circumstances were infected or diseased trees marked but left alone. If a tree was to far gone to be burned, it may be marked to note they year it got infected but it was rare to find a single bad tree without others being attacked around it.