Opinion: Maine is working to avoid a catastrophic spruce budworm outbreak

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • May 21, 2026

The last spruce budworm outbreak, from the late 1960s through the early 1990s, killed 20 to 25 million cords of spruce and fir across northern Maine and cost the state’s forest economy hundreds of millions of dollars. Salvage clearcutting reshaped the landscape and poisoned the politics of Maine forestry for a generation. The current budworm outbreak began in Quebec around 2006 and has since caused severe defoliation across more than 15 million acres of spruce-fir forest. Its leading edge has already crossed into Maine. But this time, Maine isn’t waiting for the hillsides to turn brown. In 2025, the Maine Budworm Response Coalition, a partnership of landowners, the Maine Forest Service, University of Maine scientists, and industry partners, treated 241,416 acres of forest with low-toxicity insecticides. Treated sites experienced roughly a 95% decline in budworm populations. The math is working, and the forests are holding. ~ Naresh Khanal, graduate student in natural resource economics, UMaine