Facts: This is how you recognize a vulture injury
Soil damage is easiest to detect when the snow has thawed and before it starts to turn green. The worm gnaws on the bark and the teeth leave parallel marks. It also likes to eat shoots. Small plants can even be completely cut off and eaten, with an oblique cut surface on the small stick that may remain.
An infested pine rarely survives, while spruce seedlings are more hardy and often survive an infestation.
Source: Swedish Forest Agency
“Several forest plantations have been damaged and reports of new sork damage continue to flow in. Many forest owners do not yet know that the plants have been sork fed and need to quickly look out for their plantations and contact their insurance company,” says Tobias Gramner, damage coordinator at Skogsstyrelsen’s region Nord, in a press release.
According to the authority, reports of extensive damage have come from Västernorrland, Jämtland, Västerbotten and southern Norrbotten.
It is above all about pine and spruce plantations that are younger than five years that “have become pure pantry for the vulture, especially then the field vulture”, writes the Swedish Forest Agency.
This past winter has been favorable for the voles, which has increased the damage.
The small pine plants usually do not survive the rodents’ progress and the risk is that entire plantings must be redone.