Dead trees in Ocean County Park in Lakewood, are being removed.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Dead trees in Ocean County Park in Lakewood, victims of the Southern Pine Beetle, are being removed. 
The beetle is small, only about the size of a grain of rice, but it enters the tree through crevices in the bark and then creates S-shaped tunnels just beneath the bark. This disrupts the flow of nutrients, killing the tree in typically 2-4 months. Most trees resist the initial attacks by secreting
resin that can slow the entry, but trees almost always die as their defenses are overwhelmed by thousands of attacking beetles. 
SPB is the most destructive pest of southern pine forests. From 1999-2002, an outbreak of the beetle in the southeastern U.S. resulted in more than one billion dollars in loss for the timber industry.
Ocean County Parks & Recreation