2012

Let’s help pine groves!

Each year, JSC “Latvia’s State Forests” sets up several thousand birdhouses to combat deciduous and coniferous tree pests. For birds to continue re-using the company’s birdhouses, they must be cleaned up and inspected every autumn.

It is particularly important to clean up the birdhouses of flycatchers and tits, which do not remove old nest material before nesting, but build new nests on top of it. Unfortunately, such nests are more accessible and flycatchers and tits are more susceptible to predator damage.  

Flycatchers and tits play considerable roles in combating European pine sawflies, observed in several hundred hectares of pine groves in eastern Vidzeme, northern Kurzeme and the vicinity of Riga this past summer. In 2003-2007, these insects swarmed several thousand hectares of forests in eastern Vidzeme and northern Kurzeme and aviation was used to limit their population.

JSC “Latvia’s State Forests” Forest and Fire Protection Chief Indulis Brauners: “Cleaning up the previously set up birdhouses is a simple and efficient task that can be done by every owner to protect forests from pests. Furthermore, new birdhouses should be placed in endangered forest groves from autumn onwards.”