They may be faster on unhealthy trees, but kill healthy ones too.
Never seen that they eat on dead wood.
picture from colorcountry
Posted on 05/15/2008 8:32:54 AM PDT by george76
Crews will cut trees on more than 200 acres around Vail this summer in their continuing efforts to battle the pine beetle epidemic.
This summer’s work will continue to create a ribbon of “defensible space” around the town that seeks to prevent the spread of fire...
“It’s to protect lives, homes and property from the effects of catastrophic wildfire,” ...
The work is part of the Vail Valley Forest Health Project, a multi-year effort coordinated by the Forest Service that seeks to combat the pine beetle infestation from East Vail to Edwards.
The mountain pine beetle epidemic has killed up to 90 percent of mature lodgepole pine in some areas near Vail.
“It’s just a cleanup of the fuel for fire,” ... “It’s very good to do it.”
(Excerpt) Read more at vaildaily.com ...
.
But, they are attempting to stop a special beetle from its natural habit, eating pine trees. These Vail liberals need to let the pine beetle live, as insects have rights, too.
“These Vail liberals need to let the pine beetle live, as insects have rights, too.”
These Vail liberals ARE insects!
These beetles only eat live trees, then move on after the kill.
It would be nice if they would eat dead trees.
Tweetle Beetles, excerpted from “The Fox in Socks”, by Dr Seuss
Very well, then
Mr. Knox, sir.
Let’s have a little talk
about tweetle beetles....
What do you know
about tweetle beetles?
well...
When tweetle beetles fight,
it’s called
a tweetle beetle battle.
And when they
battle in a puddle,
it’s a tweetle
beetle puddle battle.
AND when tweetle beetles
battle with paddles in a puddle,
they call it a tweetle
beetle puddle paddle battle.
AND...
When beetles battle beetles
in a puddle paddle battle
and the beetle battle puddle
is a puddle in a bottle...
...they call this
a tweetle beetle
bottle puddle
paddle battle muddle.
AND...
When beetles
fight these battles
in a bottle
with their paddles
and the bottle’s
on a poodle
and the poodle’s
eating noodles...
...they call this
a muddle puddle
tweetle poodle
beetle noodle
bottle paddle battle.
AND...
Now wait
a minute
Mr. Socks Fox!
When a fox is
in the bottle where
the tweetle beetls battle
with their paddles
in a puddle on a
noodle-eating poodle.
THIS is what they call...
...a tweetle beetle
noodle poodle bottles
paddled muddled duddled
fuddled wuddled
fox in socks, sir!
Fox in socks,
our game us done, sir.
Thank you for
a lot of fun, sir.
When I lived in the mountains I was told by the tree cutter that the beetles only attack unhealthy trees.
I would think it is all part of natural selection in the forest.
But hey I could be wrong.
They may be faster on unhealthy trees, but kill healthy ones too.
Never seen that they eat on dead wood.
picture from colorcountry
Last year when we visited family in Highlands Ranch we experienced two blizzards. We were snowed in twice.
You didn’t have a good snow fall in the mountains, thats something I did not know.
Isn't that Mark Udall's campaign slogan?
It takes some serious cold to kill the larvae. I can’t recall the specific numbers but IIRC -10F for 1-2 weeks solid to chill the trunks enough to freeze the little rascals dead. Snowfall doesn’t help a bit. In fact, high snowpack acts as an insulating blanket.
That "used" to be true before Colorado underwent a 10-year drought when all the trees got stressed from lack of water making all of them ripe for the pickings.
You can see in infected wood a purple stain. Every pine tree I cut down in Roosevelt National Forest in the late 70s (firewood) was stained purple. The need to develop GM pine trees.
Makes me sad since I'm moving to Colorado by the end of this year. I'm wondering if all of the main natural attractions in the state are going to be gone in a couple years, and we'll just have a sea of brown.
Beetles don’t eat the wood. They burrow into the cambium to lay eggs. The hatched larvae destroy considerable swaths of cambium, and if the tree is thereby girdled, it dies.
We’ve lost several pines over the last two years.
You're thinking of the Powder Post Beetle (AKA Stink Bug). Different animal. The Mountain Pine Beetle is the culpret.
Not so. Their attack is certainly more devastating on a tree that has a poor water supply, but without the beetle, the tree would live on for decades.
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