Imminent National Catastrophe?

[elk_hunter]

Just curious if anyone is paying attention to the pine beetle destruction sweeping through the forests. Colorado is turning brown in a hurry; I talked with the Forest Service and they say there is no known way to stop the beetle and the little bastards are spreading quickly. They've tried spraying trees with a retardant, but it's very expensive and has to be re-applied. I shudder at the thought of what a lightning strike would do...

Thoughts?

 

[1_pointer]

If I had to guess, I'd say that past fire suppression and/or the lack of logging are two of the biggest culprits for the problem.

 

[elk_hunter]

They've already estimated Colorado forests to be dead in 5 years. What's concerning is the spread of the beetle infestation; these little bastards hit all pine trees, so it seems with their reproduction rate and how quickly they kill, the forests throughout the US will be brown and dead in no time at all. I guess Canada has had a problem, but they tackled it with major timber cutting initiatives. I agree though, that natural fires would have probably weeded these little devils out and/or kept them in check.

 

[Washington Hunter]

On a positive note, I would think that this may improve habitat and benefit deer and elk.

 

[shoots-straight]

I guess that extremely cold weather is population control on the pest. Until this year we've not gotten very cold in over a decade. This year we saw upwards of -38 below in some areas for a very short period of time. Fire and ice seem to be the controlling factor in population control.

 

[elk_hunter]

WH - I agree that we'll probably see better habitat for the animals; of course I wonder how bad it will be when the animals want shelter under big, draping pine trees and they can't because the needles are gone.

SS - funny you should mention that. I asked if the snow/ice had any effect on the beetles and they (FS) told me no.

But damn, every year I go back, the browner and uglier it gets. Hell, I even suggested a proactive solution to get in there and start logging. At least get all that timber on the market and bring some hefty revenues to the state...but they shot me down on that one.

 

[Oak]

The mountain pine beetle is killing primarily lodgepole pine in CO. Luckily, the majority of our high elevation forests are spuce-fir. There are spruce bark beetles and Douglas-fir beetles, but they don't seem to be doing much damage at this time. The lodgepole is almost gone here, and they are predicting that the lodgepole in the Medicine Bow mountains in WY will be done in 5 years.

The biggest concern, IMO, is the possible effects of a fire on watersheds that provide drinking water for Front Range communities. Landowners who are concerned will create defensible space around their structures. Those that don't...oh well.

 

[cjcj]

Elk hunter , this is not new... I saw it in southern Utah 5 yrs ago...they have a spraying program... but its pretty much useless.

 

[BigHornRam]

Here's a good article on this

A pine beetle infestation is spreading from the mountains into southern Wyoming and the Front Range, and all of Colorado's mature lodgepole pine forests will be killed within three to five years, state and federal officials said Monday. The bark beetle infestation ravaged 500,000 new acres of forests in Colorado in 2007, bringing the total infestation to 1.5 million acres — almost all of state's lodgepole forests — according to the latest aerial survey. The infestation has now worked its way north and east, including an increase of more than 1,500 percent in the acreage affected in Boulder and Larimer counties.

"That's a pretty staggering thought," Susan Gray, group leader of Forest Health Management for the U.S. Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Region, said of the statewide figures that the official news release called a "catastrophic event."

"That is going to have an effect on wildlife habitat, watersheds and everything that is dependent on lodgepole pine forests."
Bill Crapser, state forester for Wyoming, said that 85 percent to 90 percent of the mature lodgepole pine — about 750,000 acres — will be dead in the Medicine Bow Mountains of southern Wyoming in the next three to five years.

The result of the devastation will be a landscape much like that of Yellowstone National Park after the fires that ravaged the forests there in 1988, said Rick Cables, Rocky Mountain regional forester for the U.S. Forest Service.

The Colorado forest will regenerate, he said, with lodgepole saplings perhaps reaching knee-to-waist height in 10 years.

"Our ultimate goal is to create more resilient forests that thrive under the pressures of our changing climate and ever-evolving human activities and pressures," said Cables. "What we are trying to do is create a diversity of age classes in these forests so that one insect or pathogen cannot destroy an entire forest at once.

"One of the things that is going on in Colorado is our forests are ready to regenerate. They are old. And if you look at the many different species — aspen, spruce, lodgepole — they all have one thing in common. They are old."

The state has 1.7 million acres of lodgepole forests.

The pine beetles have reached "epidemic proportions" on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park, said spokesperson Kyle Patterson.

"It is an epidemic in the whole area (of northern Colorado), and we are one small part of it," she said.

Evident in Wyoming

Like Patterson, Crapser described the infestation as epidemic in the Bridger-Teton Forest of northwest Wyoming and in the Black Hills of northeast Wyoming.

In addition, infestations are now evident on Casper Mountain, near Casper, and in the Big Horn Mountains, in north-central Wyoming, he said.

"We are seeing large populations of not only the mountain pine beetle, but also the spruce bark beetle and the Douglas fir beetle," said Crapser.

The reason for the infestation, according to Jeff Jahnke, Colorado state forester, is an "unprecedented combination of drought, warm winters . . . and poor conditions that have caused an extensive, unprecedented infestation of the beetle."

Gray and Bob Cain, a U.S. Forest Service entomologist, said that a lack of cold winters has allowed pine beetles to thrive.

Not cold enough to kill

Cain said that normally in the middle of winter, temperatures need to fall to minus 40 degrees to kill the bark-residing beetles.

"Those are the temperatures that used to shut these outbreaks down," he said. "We used to routinely get into the minus 40s in the mountains. And we just haven't been."

Ingrid Aguayo, a forest entomologist for the Colorado Forest Service, said the pine beetle, which is native to the state, will migrate to other, less-favored hosts when the mature lodgepole are gone. Mature trees are at least 8 inches in diameter and have thicker inner bark, which the beetles prefer. She anticipated that the remaining beetles could jump to ponderosa, limber and bristlecone pine.

Overall, she said, the number of pine beetles is expected to decline when the current epidemic has run its course.

A new, more diverse forest should better withstand any beetle infestation caused by a future drought, she added.

Preventing "big" fires

Because of the scale of the current beetle infestation, Cables said that the U.S. Forest Service can treat only what he characterized as "strategic acres." He defined those as watersheds, the structures that carry water from the mountains and areas where the service is attempting to prevent "big" forest fires.

"We may be creating fuel breaks by removing trees, so we can stop a fire so it doesn't destroy the forest or so sediment doesn't get into reservoirs," he said.

The dead forests will be susceptible to fires for the next 15 or 20 years.

He said the Forest Service is thinning trees and removing vegetation so it can prevent future fires and create a forest where the remaining trees are healthier because they are not competing for as much water and sunlight.

Such trees, said Cables, are healthier and "can fight off the bugs."

 

[ringer]

We lost a ton of trees in the last five years and they said the drought created weak trees which is perfect for the bugs. Another thank you to the tree hugging hippie generation who killed the logging idustry with non scientific bullshit. Let them die and burn then we can start all over. If you built a home in the middle of a forest you better get the chainsaw out and go to work. My buddy cut 28 trees down on his 2 acre lot a couple of years ago.

 

[BuzzH]

Has nothing at all to do with tree hugging hippies...lodgepole life cycles are predictable...and this latest infestation/die-off is normal.

Lodgepole forests function by stand replacing disturbance.

Lodgepole are a good tree species for logging, the problem is they dont get big real fast. Typical rotation ages are 80 years, also the prime age for RMPB infestations. Its also fair to note that with even-aged trees on vast acreages (also common with lodgepole), the window to log these stands is pretty narrow.

Lodgepole are a management nightmare. They dont get real big, lots of stems per acre, windthrow easy, pine beetle problems, not worth as much as larch, fir, ponderosa, etc.

The solutions are not as simple as logging.

Replies like Ringers are typical of people who dont understand the issues and management.

 

[BigHornRam]

On the positive side, there will be no shortage of firewood in Colorado in the years to come.

More than just lodgepole are dying Buzz, as the article mentions......

"We are seeing large populations of not only the mountain pine beetle, but also the spruce bark beetle and the Douglas fir beetle," said Crapser.

The Douglas fir up here are dying left and right. Instead of cutting dead and dying fir trees for lumber, the FS is tied up in court until they are rotten and worthless. I do agree with Buzz's comments reguarding lodgepole forest.....no simple solutions.

 

[ringer]

Logging cleans out all the peckerpoles as part of the process to get the bigger trees. They sure made a bunch of pine lumber here back when logging made financial sense. My point is that between no logging and drought we have sick forests that will burn out large areas. There was and is a place for logging in this country if people do it properly. I noticed that the Apache reservation had no dead trees from beetles. Hmm, maybe that is because the indians don't give a shit about white fat assed hippies and still operate timber mills. Hmm. You ever pull the weeds or thin plants in your garden? Gee, all the surviving ones are healthier. I would think the Forest Service would be begging for a revival of logging as a management tool.

 

[BuzzH]

BHR,

The difference with DF and Spruce is that they arent as even-aged on a stand level. In other words, the younger trees within a stand are usually not going to be infected with pathogens and/or insects.

But, this also creates its own management nightmare, as how do you selectively log (cost effectively) say a few hundred DF trees that are dying from bark beetles in a thousand acre stand? Pretty tough to do. In particular when federal regulations, Forest Plans, and BMP's must be addressed. Not to mention that NOW getting those logs to a mill is complicated with $3.50/gallon fuel prices. Mills are also further apart as the fast production mills out-competed local mills.

There are no anwers in some cases, you just have to let the forests function on their own.

 

[BuzzH]

Ringer,

It would be nice if the FS had an operating budget. Thats for starters. Secondly, you cant "thin" a mature lodgepole forest, they're shallow rooted and windthrow something fierce. Remember? STAND REPLACEMENT DISTURBANCE? Even if you could thin them, you'd get nearly ZERO reproduction without fire.

You are further proving my point regarding lodgepole forests, that ARE not part of the Apache Reservation. Those are mostly P. Pine and Apache Pine, a much more valuable and easier to manage tree species. Dont get the two confused.

Lets look at Lodgepole management finacially to the taxpayer and you tell me if it makes sense.

You're dealing with a tree species that regenerates after fire. Stems/acre usally are very high...1000-several thousand an acre. They grow fast, but if they're left unthinned will remain small. So, you have to thin them. The cost per acre to thin lodgepole is very high on say 10 foot spacing. You enter the stand and thin...lots of $$$. Typically you have to have another thinning when the trees reach pole size...again big $$$. Sometimes you can recoup some losses IF you can find a local post and pole operation. Then you let the trees grow to saw timber size (usually 80+ years). You hope that a majority of the trees you selected dont have too much form defect or disease issues to maximize profit. But, when you go to sell, the local mills that were around during the last rotation have all been gobbled up by centralized mills that gobble thousand and thousand of board feet per shift. Now there you sit with a bunch of timber that, even if you open to logging, likely wont be bid on because fuel prices and transportation prices have kicked your ass. On top of that you find out that some dumb Republican named RONALD REAGAN thought NAFTA was a good idea and has flooded the market with cheap Canadian timber. Not to mention that fact that on the coast and in the South on private timber lands, you can grow the same tree in a third of the time without worrying about BMP's, NFMA, etc.

So, there you sit with a stand that is ripe for pine beetle explosions, no local mills to handle the situation, and loggers that cant afford fuel for their equipment. The tax payers are a'whinin' because they thought they would get a return on their investment.

Theres no solution other than just leaving the trees in the woods. Free enterprise in the logging/ wood products industry has cut its own throat.

You still blame the hippies...what a joke.

 

[Calif. Hunter]

We have had a bark beetle infestation in the San Bernardino mountains and San Gorgonio Wilderness areas for serveral years. The main tree affected have been the Ponderosa Pines. The Boy Scout camp I am involved with finally took an agressive clearing campaign to clean out the infected trees. It may not be the same bug, as a lot of the wood is not good for building. It has a green tint to it, though, and has become popular for uses where it is visible - paneling, siding, etc.

The fires down here have also helped control the bugs. Just goes to show - too much fire suppression, overgrown forests and still Mother Nature will address things hopefully. The entire Southern California ecology is based upon fires and climate. The California poppy seeds need to be frozen in order to germinate well, for example, and the forests need to burn once in a while. Lightning strikes and fast-moving fires to burn off the underbrush and/or the old stand timber to allow clearings and new growth. Some seeds need to be "burned" in order to germinate, too.

 

[BuzzH]

Calif. Hunter has the general idea...there is hope that the public, once in a while, does "get it".

 

[ringer]

Buzz, unless you guys will pick up the chainsaws then there isn't much you can do even if you were flush with money. Interesting dissertaion and nice NAFTA dig. Forgot about Clinton selling us to China? I guess that one was CAFTA and we got it in the ass deeper from your buddy. Anyway how can you live in the NW and forget the 70s when the family loggers were run out of business by the protestors, tree sitters and tree spikers. I had good friends that never sold to corporate mills they just couldn't make it anymore with the new regs. I guess the big fires are the best remedy.

 

[BuzzH]

Ringer,

You can argue all you want, but I deal with reality.

The family loggers were run out of business by Corporate America and Free Enterprise. NAFTA was a nail in the coffin to many...frankly most of them voted for Reagan and deserved what they got. No way a local mill can sustain losses like a bigger company can in the short term. Most worked on a shoe-string budget and had to be making money all the time when the mill was running. They also couldnt compete for Government timber as they were out-bid by the larger companies.

The protestors did not run any small loggers out of business. They just dont like the reality of having to admit it was companies like Champion, Plum Creek, Stimpson, Werhauser, etc. that stomped out the family run timber businesses.

Apparently you must live in the same delusional world as your buddies.

Time to wake up and face reality.

 

[ringer]

OK I just woke up and realized that you are right. I will never question your Autoritay again Cartman. Go start a few controlled burns and get rid of some bugs. It was all a vast right wing conspiracy.