Posted on 07/30/2007 8:26:22 AM PDT by george76
Goal of cutting is to reduce fire danger, salvage timber and regrow forest.
Removing beetle infected pine trees will help new and healthy pine trees grow. It will also promote the growth of aspen, which are naturally fire resistant.
By clearing out these trees, they’re prevented from falling on the ground, which not only adds to the fire danger, but also hampers growth of new trees.
Dead trees also obstruct movement of large animals such as deer and elk.
The dead trees left behind shed their needles and branches and then fall to the forest floor. The pines, filled with sticky, combustible pitch, make great fuel for wildfires.
The Forest Service would rather take advantage of those trees and sell them to recover some of the costs of regrowing a new forest.
When dead trees are covering the forest floor, blocking sunlight, it also makes it more difficult for new ones to start growing. Clear cutting makes growing new pines and aspen much easier...
The Forest Service admits that yes, these areas are tiny compared to how large the White River National Forest is. They still see the need to do what they can where they can.
“In the big scheme of things, when they do burn, we want to decrease the severity,”
(Excerpt) Read more at vaildaily.com ...
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“When the tweedle beetles battle with their paddles in a bottle full of water on a noodle-eating poodle, it’s a tweedle beetle noodle poodle water bottle paddle battle.” (Fox in Sox)
But, but what about the spotted owls’ habitat!!!
Also get rid of the beetles. We’re hearing now that DDT is not as dangerous as first thought. It also works.
"Full of water" ???
I think the word there was "puddle".
The big DDT scare was concocted by the envirowhackos who WANT more people to die from disease and starvation in order to reduce the number of humans, whom they regard as an infestation on the earth. Well, all humans except THEM, of course.
Dead trees also obstruct movement of large animals such as deer and elk.
OK, this writer is an idiot. Can anyone here guess why deer fence, to be effective, must be over 8 ft tall ?
Now contrast that to the average fallen tree. Does this writer think most trees are over 8’ in diameter ? Even the fawns jump 4 ft or better.
Beetle Battle Fiddle Faddle Piddle Paddle...........
This is a national shame and problem.
Dead trees can fall on top of each other. The lumber pile of multiple ( thousands ? ) of large dead pine trees can be well over eight feet high and very wide.
Environmentalism Kills
“This man is a genius!”
-Dick Solomon
I talked to one elderly gentleman, who said that this whole sale killing by beetles happened before down in New Mexico and Colorado before World War II. The big problem apparently isn’t the loss of trees (which eventually come back), but the HUGE fire danger.
While I was camping in the Shoshone River valley, they told us that their greatest concern was fire. Since there really was only one way out of the valley, you could have a major disaster with large loss of life if a fire ever took off in that valley.
This concern was highlighted by the fact that they were more worried about a forest fire then they were bear attacks.
As a side note: is it known that DDT could have been used to kill off the beetles, or is that just an assumption?
Sincerely
Thanks for the ping.
Our forests and timberland would benefit greatly if the polititions and wacko enviros would let trained foresters manage them, they have the expertise contrary to what the enviros say.
Years ago I hunted with a group for several years in the mountains above Beaver, UT. There was a large tract of timber that had dead trees piled so high it was impossible to walk through, standing trees were sick and dying, it was a mess. Don’t know if it’s still that way or something has been done to correct it.
Beetle Battle?
Sounds like it should have its own cartoon strip.
I was in Montana last week. Traveled most of the “Gold West” country (the Southwestern part). The skies were hazy with smoke and I saw evidence of infestation of bark beetle. The fires in the Western United State are devastating, and these dead and dying trees just offer more fuel for the fires.
Idaho and Utah have been especially hard hit by fires this fire season.
I suppose there are insecticides that are effective on the bark beetle, but proper forest management (thinning out weak, overcrowded forests) and harvesting the useful timber products are simply the best, most cost effective ways of managing the bark beetle.
Spruce bark beetles are native to many spruce forests throughout the world. Most of the time, beetle populations are very low (endemic). They prefer down trees, infesting pockets of windfall or areas where trees are being cut for activities such as road construction and home building.
When forest conditions are right-lots of big, old spruce trees growing closely together-these endemic populations can expand to epidemic levels.
The Steamboat Springs area had a blown down in the 1970’s. Apparently the pile was over 20 feet high and miles wide ( ? ).
Some believe that we will have a massive fire soon ( bigger than in 1910 ) where thousands of people will die. The possiblity of loosing millions of acres in a few days was mentioned.
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