Posted on 08/27/2007 8:19:00 AM PDT by george76
An unstoppable wave could devastate 3 million acres of lodgepole pines.
Mountain pine beetles are obliterating a forest that stretches from British Columbia to Mexico, and in the process are creating a hazard for fire, public safety and water supply.
“What we’re looking at is an entire lodgepole pine forest dying right before our eyes,”...
Severson described the problem to the Colorado Water Congress at its convention last week....
More than 22 million acres eventually will be destroyed in the American West. Meanwhile, the beetles are making their way across Canada toward the Atlantic Ocean as well.
The lack of logging has created a higher proportion of large, older trees in the forests. They’re all about the same age and equally vulnerable.
The damage is spreading faster than in the past, with 660,000 acres of trees destroyed in 2006 alone, and this year’s total still being counted.
The U.S. Forest Service has brought other agencies into a cooperative effort, but can’t move fast enough to contain the problem, Carroll said. Private landowners are doing most of the work of thinning trees so far.
About 15 years prior to the disastrous 1988 Yellowstone fire, there was a massive beetle infestation...
“We need to manage forests for a healthy forest to reduce threat of fire,” ... Sen. Jack Taylor...cited a blow-down of 20,000 acres of trees in the Mount Zirkel Wilderness area of the Routt National Forest associated with the October 1997 blizzard that buried Southeastern Colorado in snow.
“It was so jack-strawed, even the game couldn't get through,” ... There was a weakening of trees and the trees started turning red. ... We need to get what wood we can, get some value out of it, not leave kindling for a big fire."
(Excerpt) Read more at chieftain.com ...
.
Al Gore is deeply saddened...
We have a weird new pine borer beetle killing a lot of trees, here.
Supposedly, they were “accidentally” imported in Chinese cargo.
We have had a nasty “bark” beetle infestation for years here in California. It has devestated tree in the Angles National Forest and resulted in numerous fires.
Bring back DDT before we loose everything. I believe that it has been proven that DDT doesn’t hurt a thing.
Also, please note that what the government is doing is counting, not fixing. They will count the beetles, and they will count the trees, maybe count the houses and the people. They will count the streams and then count the fishes in them. And when they finish they will realize a lot of time is elapsed so they will go back and resume counting all over again. They cought to count the obstructionist environmentalists and throw them all in the slammer.
What eats bark-beetles?
I knew this would happen because the USDA failed to quarantine these 4 specimens in back in '64.
And then the loss of the trees and brush causes mudslides when it rains.
But.....let’s not harm the environment by:
A. killing the beetles
B. clearing the trees once dead
Good question for a forester : “ What eats bark-beetles? “
Thanks for the picture.
Next : a big fire .
“Good question for a forester : “ What eats bark-beetles? “”
Geez, I can be a slow learner, but how many frickin times do we have to go through this 100% predictable experience, always so devastating to forests? The Greenies say we can’t log ‘em, we can’t clear ‘em, so we have to undergo total destruction, either by horrific firestorm or bark beetle. Same crap everywhere.
Here's a stitch of two photos in the Revelstoke area showing some infected trees as well as areas that have been harvested...
Here's a zoom in on some of the infected area..
Sir Paul McCartney is a vegetarian you know...
A Stihl chainsaw.
Environmentalism Kills!
Thanks for the pictures.
Hopefully the Canadian politicans are smarter than ours.
Harvesting is a good solution.
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