Officials Urge Residents to Watch for Infestation Signs
Feb 28, 2026
BAR HARBOR—Since April 2025, all of Mount Desert Island has been in a tree quarantine due to emerald ash borers found on trees in Bar Harbor.
When local arborist Jamie Lambert drove down the Indian Point Road, he noticed something: the trees were blonding.
Blonding is when the woodpeckers start to remove the outer bark of the tree to go after an insect’s larvae and pupae.
Blonding can be a bad sign for ash trees.
Lambert stopped to confirm what he thought might be happening under the surface of those ash trees: emerald ash borer infiltration. He checked the trees and told the state.
The state quickly went into action, he said.
And what the state found?
It was exactly what Lambert, the local manager and arborist representative at Bartlett Tree Experts in Mount Desert, feared.
The emerald ash borer was definitely in the Town Hill trees.
“This is an unfortunate but not entirely unexpected discovery,” Maine State Forester Patty Cormier said last April. “We’ve known that EAB continues to spread throughout Maine, and we appreciate the vigilance of local arborists and community members. Public awareness is important to detecting and responding to this destructive forest pest.”
Last week was National Invasive Species Awareness week, and the state began that awareness with the borer, which can annihilate the ash.
The larvae of the borer eat the ash tree bark’s inner layer. This is the same layer that brings nutrients and waters to the leaves. Untreated trees gradually die when the bark layer is damaged and have roughly a 2 percent chance of survival.
The ash borer was first found in Maine in 2018. According to a research report from Bartlett trees, it was first found in Michigan in 2002. It is not native to the continent and arrived via “solid wood packing material from Asia,” the report says.
Emergence Magazine further explains, “In the early 1990s, a cargo ship arrived in the port of Detroit, carrying pallets made of unprocessed ash wood from East Asia, where cousins of North American ash trees live. Along for the ride were several emerald beetles, each only half an inch long.”
The borer has already infested millions of Maine ash trees. After that infestation, trees typically live only 2-3 years.
“Although EAB has caused destruction of ash ecosystems across North America, including here in Maine, there is hope for these trees. In our area, groups like Ash Protection Collaboration Across Wabanakik (APCAW) and Sustaining Ash Partners Network (SAP-Ne) are building collaborative efforts towards keeping ash in our forests. Join SAP-Ne to learn how to preserve and propagate ash seed and about efforts towards maintaining the genetic diversity of ash in our region,” the Maine Department of Agriculture explained.
According to the state, you can look for signs of the borer and the state is actively monitoring and wants to know if you find infestations. Now is a good time to look.
“In winter, woodpeckers knock off tree bark in search for food (including EAB larvae), which may help us identify trees with EAB from a distance: Light patches of missing bark on stems of ash trees; Dark chips of ash bark littering the snow; ‘S’ shaped tunnels underneath the ash bark,” the Department of Agriculture wrote.
Signs include blonding, s-shaped tunnels under the bark, d-shaped exit holes for the adult beetles and epicormic shoots.
If you suspect you’ve found ash borer, the state asks that you report it to the Maine Forest Service.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE VIA THE STATE OF MAINE
Invasive Emerald Ash Borer in Bar Harbor
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April 2, 2025
To better understand where and when EAB has been detected, and see up-to-date EAB quarantine zones, check out our EAB Dashboard.
- Identify ash trees by watching this 3 minute video with a Maine District Forester, Julie Davenport.
- Scout for signs and symptoms of EAB by watching a 3 minute video with a Maine Entomologist, Colleen Teerling.
- Get answers to FAQ’s on EAB for Maine landowners by reading this informational sheet (PDF).
- Reduce the risk of spreading EAB within regulated areas with tips from this Best Management Practices guide (PDF).
- Cultivating Ash Resilience Across the Landscape– a two-part learning series with SAP-Ne.
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