A forest tinged in red
.
Posted on 07/23/2007 8:57:22 AM PDT by george76
Gov. Bill Ritter said Wednesday that the pine beetle epidemic that has killed nearly half of the state’s lodgepole pine trees will have an “impact for generations to come” and will change the look of Colorado’s forests.
After getting a look at stands of dead trees from the air, Ritter said the outbreak is part of a natural cycle that has been encouraged by the drought, milder winters and the fact there are so many clusters of the same type and age of tree that are attractive to the beetles.
He said the epidemic can’t be stopped, only managed to reduce the risk of wildfires. That will change the look of Colorado’s forests as more pine trees die and are replaced with new ones.
About 44 percent of the state’s 1.5 million acres of lodgepole pine are now infested by beetles, or about 660,000 acres.
With all but 100,000 acres of the dead trees on federal land, the bulk of the thinning falls to the U.S. Forest Service, which plans to treat 18,000 acres of dead trees this year. Rocky Mountain Regional Forester Rick Cables said he wishes the agency could do more, but ...
The dry, dead trees, which have a rusty red color, pose the biggest fire risk in the year or two before their needles fall off.
(Excerpt) Read more at grandcountynews.com ...
A forest tinged in red
.
Natural progression....
Why haven’t we heard an EnviroNazi outcry about saving “Old-Growth Forests”???
We can allow beetles to destroy the trees, but never, ever, can we allow any loggers harvest them in any economically sustainable way.
sad.
reminds me of the 70s.
i’m native to the front range.
When I was in CO last summer, I saw some of this. The trees around Lake Dillon looked pretty bad. It’s sad that the beetle population has blossomed to the point of being out of control.
No, seriously: part of the reason they're so prevalent now is because of a lack of forestry management for many years. I keep telling people that trees are living things, explaining the life cycle, explaining the various diseases and pests that kill weakened and elderly trees already nearing the end of their life cycle, but year after year the environazi cry has been NO NO, DON'T TOUCH! Now the beetles have spread unchecked for years, adding to the already high risk of fire due to the buildup of normal deadfall at least tenfold. Same thing has been happening in Florida...though Governor Bush had badly infested areas logged off despite the environazi temper tantrums, in order to help contain the pests and (and this is a Republican) SAVE THE TREES. Which was exactly the opposite of what the environazis were doing.
I blame Yoko.
If this is part of a natural cycle then it probably provides a useful function.
The Forest Service was established to manage the forests using science.
Now, science is not used.
Damn the Sierra Club lawyers and the weak , emotional judges.
We have been watching this progress for decades.
The feds control over 80 percent of these forest. The eco-nuts and their lawyers have prevented even scientific logging.
Many more massive fires will happen in the years to come. Then massive air pollution, water pollution, organic soil destruction, dead wild life including fishes in streams without oxygen, and...
Ah, memories. I’m an old fart and can remember those days!
That's a nightmare I wouldn't have considered possible before last year when Obsessive compulsive "real conservatives" almost completely took over this forum.
Bush WILL be blamed though: he caused global warming (probably because he hasn't Built The Wall) and is therefore the dirrect cause of this pine beetle problem.
If I've learned anything from FR in the past 7 years, it's that no problems existed before Bush took office.
Your solution does work and we would have much healthier forests.
We can and should do this on our private land.
The forest service is a terrible neighbor. The foresters and other most USFS professionals know what to do and want to be good managers, but the eco-lawyers file tons of lawsuits and the weak judges are afraid.
....And it'll be blamed on Global Warming caused by the Bush/Cheney/Halliburton cabal.
Science has been the exception in the Forestry Department since the end of the '70's. The brainwashing has worked. Now perfectly rational people believe that trees will live forever if humans would only leave them alone.
My husband is a former Hotshot who fought in Yellowstone. He lost a lot of people that he knew there. I don't know how to undo so many years of propaganda. Even the Weather Channel was gratuitously selling Global Warming as the root cause of every single natural problem on Earth.
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