In the spring of 2020, Stockholm County was classified as a control area against the spruce bark drill and the Swedish Forest Agency gives high priority to the control of the drills.

Around Södertälje, the forests have been damaged in several places, including Mörkö, the Garnudden nature reserve and the Jägarskogen nature reserve.

The damage is the same despite traps

To overcome the problems, the Swedish Forest Agency has, among other things, tried to set up traps around damaged forests, but there has been little knowledge about how effective the traps are in the control.

A new report made by Skogforsk shows that the traps have a dubious effect when it comes to catching spruce bark beetles, the Swedish Forest Agency writes in a press release.

- Overall, the study does not show any clear effect of the traps.

The attacks and damage to the trees were as great in the areas that had traps as in our control areas that did not have traps, says project manager Per-Erik Larsson, Södra skogsägarna.

Together with other actors, the Swedish Forest Agency will now review advice and recommendations regarding spruce bark drilling traps.

In September 2020, SVT followed when forest consultant Joel Lindqvist emptied traps on thousands of spruce bark beetles between Södertälje and Järna.

Here you can see how the traps work:

Javascript is disabled

Javascript must be turned on to play video

Read more about browser support

The browser is not supported

SVT does not support playback in your browser.

We therefore recommend that you switch to another browser.

Read more about browser support

"It smells a little manure and musty," says Joel Lindqvist about the dried spruce bark beetles.

Here he empties some of the traps between Södertälje and Järna.

Photo: Maja Flygt / SVT