Reborn
Seeking Aslan's Country
Beetle scourge goes from bad to worse
The beetle infestation that is expected to kill all of Colorado's mature lodgepole forest within five years is moving into Wyoming and the Front Range.
By Howard Pankratz
The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 01/15/2008 01:34:38 AM MST
Bill Carpenter stands in front of part of the 280-acre parcel he owns in Boulder and Gilpin counties. He expects that in about three years the hills behind him will be completely red from pine beetle infestation. (Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post )
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."
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_7972146
The beetle infestation that is expected to kill all of Colorado's mature lodgepole forest within five years is moving into Wyoming and the Front Range.
By Howard Pankratz
The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 01/15/2008 01:34:38 AM MST
Bill Carpenter stands in front of part of the 280-acre parcel he owns in Boulder and Gilpin counties. He expects that in about three years the hills behind him will be completely red from pine beetle infestation. (Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post )
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."
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_7972146