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
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.
As a side note: is it known that DDT could have been used to kill off the beetles, or is that just an assumption?
We are battling beetles on our property, so far very successfully. There is another chemical that is used to battle the beetles (not sure of the name) but it is very expensive. It costs us 1200 per year to protect one acre of 80 year old trees.