This year, damage caused by spruce bark beetles has already been detected across an area of 300 hectares in Latvia. The hot spring of this year and the major autumn floods of 2017, when spruce stands were flooded over a wide area in the basins of the Pededze and Aiviekste rivers, have created a situation where this dangerous forest pest – the eight-toothed spruce bark beetle (Ips typographus) – has multiplied particularly rapidly in the northern and eastern parts of Latvia. Locally, the bark beetle has multiplied more extensively in the spruce stands damaged by the widespread flooding in the Lubāna area.

The eight-toothed spruce bark beetle is the most dangerous pest in spruce stands in Latvia, capable of infesting not only weakened spruce trees and unbarked timber but also posing a threat to perfectly healthy trees under favourable conditions. The bark beetle most frequently multiplies in massive numbers following windthrows, but it can also colonise stands weakened by excessive moisture, prolonged drought, or other factors. In years when the bark beetle multiplies in mass, its activity can result in the death of up to 10,000 hectares of spruce stands in Latvia.

The best-known methods for controlling the bark beetle are the use of pheromone traps, the felling of freshly infested trees, and the trap tree method. The most effective method for controlling the bark beetle is sanitary clear-cutting – though it must be noted that this is only effective on the condition that the felled trees are removed from the forest as quickly as possible. In these sanitary clear-cuts, pheromone traps or trap trees can also be used as additional measures.

According to the 2018 national forest pest monitoring results from LVMI "Silava", the population of the eight-toothed spruce bark beetle increased as early as 2018, which was facilitated by the warm summer. A similar situation was reflected in 2018 by the State Forest Service data on sanitary assessments – compared to 2017, the volume of damage to spruce trees from bark beetles has increased.
While in previous years approximately 30–50 ha/year were damaged as a result of spruce bark beetle activity, in 2018 this figure was 89.8 ha, and this year, by 1 July, damage has already been recorded across an area of 300 hectares. The largest damage caused by bark beetles so far this year has been observed in the vicinity of the Lubāna wetland, within the territory of the Central Vidzeme Forest District.