ALBUQUERQUE — A combination of drought and insect infestation has taken its toll this year on trees throughout the Southwest, but state and federal forestry officials said Wednesday the effects in Southern New Mexico have been particularly striking.

Brown patches of ponderosa pine trees have been surveyed across tens of thousands of acres of the Lincoln National Forest, particularly in the Sacramento Mountains.

There, the number of acres showing signs of tree mortality has jumped from 380 in 2010 to 41,000 acres this year.

The Mescalero Apache tribe has seen more than a 140-fold increase, with tree mortality reported on some 22,000 acres this year. The story is the same for state and private land.

"It's a significant jump, and it's because drought has stressed the trees and this has allowed the population of bark beetles to attack more trees," said Katherine Sanchez Meador, a spokeswoman for the Lincoln National Forest.

If the drought persists, she said tree stress and mortality will likely increase next year.

Land managers have been busy this week pouring over new aerial and ground surveys done on forest lands in New Mexico and Arizona.

The annual surveys look for everything from signs of bark beetles to declines in aspen stands.

Arizona has not been hit as hard by drought as New Mexico or neighboring Texas, and trees there fared better than in previous years. Overall, the survey turned up fewer acres of dead trees, said Arizona State Forester Scott Hunt.

Still, Hunt said land managers are keeping a close eye on some areas to ensure bark beetles don't start to build up their populations. Those areas include forests charred by massive fires last summer and an area in northern Arizona where a tornado touched down last year and took out about 10,000 acres of national forest and state trust land.

"For right now, we're more concerned about the overall general health of the forests and things we need to do to get forests restored so they can be more resilient," Hunt said.

In New Mexico, there's not much land managers can do to combat the drought. More than 90 percent of the state continues to suffer from some level of drought, and forecasters say there's a high probability that New Mexico will feel the effects of another La Niña weather pattern again this winter.

That's what forecasters call a "double-dip La Niña."

Danny Norlander, a forest health specialist with New Mexico State Forestry, said back-to-back dry winters usually correlate well with increases in bark beetles.

"By no means is this a massive outbreak," he said, referring to the ponderosa pine bark beetle. "It's just an increase that is important to keep in mind, especially if we get a double-dip La Niña like they're predicting."

Officials in New Mexico tried to put this year's tree die-off into perspective by noting that heavily forested areas in Alaska and even Colorado have seen signs of tree mortality over millions of acres.

Even Texas officials have reported that as many as a half-billion trees have died from that state's record year of drought.

Sanchez Meador said what the Lincoln National Forest is experiencing is a fraction of that, not to mention it's part of a natural cycle.

"We always lose trees, and some years it's worse than others," she said. "When you're out in the woods, you're always going to see dead trees here and there just like you see little saplings."

Snow fell on the Lincoln forest this week, and officials are holding out hope for more. Sanchez Meador said more moisture will be the key to helping those already-stressed trees ward off more beetle attacks.

If Mother Nature doesn't come through, the forest plans to continue using thinning and prescribed burning to reduce stress on trees and increase their ability to fend off insects and other disease. Some 16,000 acres were treated this year




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