Source: TORONTO STAR
The mountain pine beetle is about the size of a grain of rice, usually between 3 and 7 millimetres in length, and lives for one year.
7 million: Number of hectares infested in B.C. — an area about the size of New Brunswick.
80 Percentage of trees in the infested region that are estimated to be dead by 2013. The beetle's favourite food is mature lodgepole pines.
$1 billion: Money needed to combat the bug infestation.
$250 million: Money committed to the fight ($150 million from the B.C. government, $100 million from the federal government).
$15 billion: Value of B.C. forest industry.
58,000: Potential industry job losses.
Source: B.C. government
