Posted on 09/21/2005 12:01:36 PM PDT by george76
The U.S. Forest Service says that Monday's late season wildfire near Breckenridge underscores a major challenge facing Colorado's forests - the spread of the bark beetle.
Bark beetles burrow into a tree between the bark and woody part, ultimately killing it.
While they've been in Colorado forests for a long time, rangers say...
The Forest Service says the extent of the infestation is beyond what they predicted, and what they've seen before in Colorado.
"I think there are places where we just can't economically treat enough forest to do any good,"
(Excerpt) Read more at 9news.com ...
Is there some natural predator for these beetles? Some woodpecker, maybe? High time to start breeding up a bunch of woodpeckers, and even feed them when there are not enough bettles around.
If we could make gasoline out of these beetles like that guy did with all those dead cats, we'd be in business!
The bark beetle attacks trees weakened by overpopulation. Logging reduces the stress on the ecosystem by thinning trees - thus keeping the forest healthier.
Of course the other natural predator of Bark Beetle is FIRE!
Forest management requires one or the other...logging vs. fire. The eviro wackos think fire is the "natural" option.
It's the fault of the Forrest service because they've stopped logging. That means that more trees have been allowed to fall on the forest floor and breed more of these things.
I also think that pollution controls have something to do with it. The old "dirty" smog actually was an airborne fertilizer, allowing the trees to fend off the beetles. Now that cars run cleaner, the forests are going to die back down to what they were in previous centuries.
Environmentalists are idiots.
The solution is private property. The sickest forests are the ones mismanaged by the government. If we are going to have urban homesteading, we need some rural homesteading, too. I fantasize about retirees caring for trees.
It would definitely get them off the roads and out of the grocery lines in peak times...
This has been happening for years in the N.W. and in Ak. when we kived there (the whole Kenai Peninsula) my husband logged all his life and me too for 25, the enviro's have dried up towns and the economy all over the N.W. that's the plan stan. Instead of thinning and sometimes having to clear sections of bug infested forest and using the wood, the groups and dem's stop it with law-suits even if it is approved..by then it is too late or a fire comes in and it is a catastrophy, with fire, animals lost and homes, jobs everything. We have been fighting this for years but give up...there is only one mill left here on either side of us. We live between Id. & Mt. on the stateline by Canada..it is too sad, I could write a book. Some of the mill workers here vote democrat which is sad because of the unions and do not understand the politics of it all, why they don't have jobs anymore. Same goes for the mining too in this area. the enviro's are taking over if they can here in Mt. with Ted Turner and alot of Hollywood and big $ Peopl...I write letters to papers ect. does no good. Just keep voting..
Look at Hillary and Kerry last night at the pow-wow on C-Span with the bull they were saying about Anwar...we lived there for 8 years, I worked on oil spill in Seward ( that could be another book) that could of been stopped to but the enviro's stopped alot of immediate progress...just like the levee's...got to stop I am getting madder and hotter! Hope Bush calls for a National Disaster and orders drilling to start and lifts alot of the enviro. laws...he can, without law suits! If Texas gets hit we are in big trouble with the refineries and chemical plants getting hit that they use for the different mixes for the gas...so we'll see.
In the past month I have driven from Denver to Grand Junction then back to Pueblo through Gunnison. I have also gone from Walsenberg to Alamosa and through to Durango.
The extent of the beetle damage is enormous. It is obvious from every stretch of highway that you travel in Colorado. Its also a big problem in Wyoming.
The bugs are killing the pinon pines at a rate that is causing the bear population to run out of food for winter.
With a passionate anti-logging climate, foresters were obligated to keep their trees standing, even though it would have been healthier to cut some down...
Some smaller patches logged and replanted in the 1970s and '80s are healthy and resisting the beetle. But there are few of those groves.
http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20050920/NEWS/109200022
Either we act or massive fires will act for us.
Massive fires produce air pollution...not just smoke, the ash will pollute the streams and lakes killing the fish and other wildlife, our drinking water will be polluted by the ash, and the soil will be destroyed if the fire gets hot enough.
People will loose their homes, jobs, schools, and lives if we only re-act.
Removing the dead and dying pine trees needs to be done all over the country...not just along I-70.
Well no kidding...we've already had a massive fire here and with the drought for the last 9 years now it is scarey. We worked on the fires, you can't blame the F.S. as much since there has been a change of hands since Clinton...it is the lawsuits. Unless you have lived and worked in logging towns people really do not understand it all. By the way when Clinton was in still in 96' we could not have heli water drops out of lakes to help put out some of these fires in Id. and other places because it might hurt the fishies...no kidding...I could go on and on...
Thanks to a selective logging operation last summer, my forest is more healthy than it has ever been. Healthy trees expell boring insects by flowing sap.
As others have pointed out, rabid environmentalism is the real problem.
Well thank Medicare policies which keep us in metro areas.
Speaking of Scott Mcginnis one of my favorite people in congress, I wished he would run for the Senate...does anyone know what he is doing now? Probably got sick of the bull, could not find a more tireless congressman, a real patriot! (I know I probably butchered his name.)
Thanks much for the link. I had seen another page on the net about this, but that's more detail about treatment and seasons than I'd been able to find.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.