Posted on 01/14/2008 10:08:55 AM PST by rellimpank
GOLDEN — Federal and state forestry officials say at current rates, mountain pine beetles will kill the majority of Colorado's large-diameter lodgepole pine forests within three to five years.
In a news conference this morning, Regional Forester Rick Cables and Jeff Jahnke, the Colorado State Forester, announced the results of the 2007 aerial survey of the state's forests.
The survey concluded that the beetle infestation in 2007 claimed 500,000 new acres of trees, bringing the total number acres of up to 1.5 million since the first signs of the outbreak 1996.
Officials described the infestation as a "catastrophic event" that has now crossed into Front Range areas.
"Dead and dying trees that were isolated to 5 northern
Colorado counties last year can now be seen in some Front Range areas as well as southern Wyoming," Cables said in a statement released at the U.S. Forest Service regional office in Golden. "The bark infestation has spread dramatically," he said. "This is an unprecedented event."
(Excerpt) Read more at denverpost.com ...
-ping—
“Global warming”, obviously.
It is not the beetles that do the damage but the birds going after the beetles.
Burn it.
When we lived in South Carolina, we had lot’s of pines in our front yard. During the quiet morning hours you could hear a constant scrubbing sound coming from them and piles of sawdust all around. We tried everything to kill them, but to no avail. There is a new systemic from bayer that we are using on our black locusts, persimmons, and pines here in Wisconsin. It’s expensive! About $10 per tree per year. We have Borer beetles in some of the locusts and we should know if it works this spring.
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How about discounting log cabin homes to use up the die off?
I always knew Ringo and McCartney were trouble!
If he had signed the Kyoto treaty, there would have been an immediate cooling of the earth due to the lowering of the greenhouse classes. The increased cooling would have had the effect of a net increase in rainfall, which then would have get the trees healthy and strong enough to fight off the infestation.
-ping-
When it rains the forest gets fungus. Can’t win.
I used to work at a hardware store and was slightly taken off balance when I saw my first Bayer insecticide.
Why?
Bayer Laboratory was part of IG Farben a 3rd Reich company that developed products for the Nazi War machine, including Zyklon-B used in the gas chambers.
Kinda creepy to me, knowing they're still at it, only insects are the new enemy.
No its the Beatles all right
Someone better tell the beetles to get with the global warming program. Their destruction of forests will prematurely release lots of CO2. Perhaps the rats can impose a carbon tax on these critters. These critters better send some donations to the rats or they may face extermination.
Umm... No.
Seen this? Comment?
“on track”? Is someone feeding the beetles a lot of metrics on this then?
Yes, it is . . . in my yard anyway. All the 5000 trees are infested and they are being killed by the birds.
This looks like a job for DDT. It would get the beetles and the stop the incoming plague of Malaria and Dengue Fever that is forthcoming.
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