Posted on 02/05/2009 7:51:32 AM PST by george76
The Dutch Hill Campground at Steamboat Lake State Park once was densely packed with lodgepole pine. But blue marks on bark now dominate the landscape, identifying the beetle-killed trees awaiting removal.
The mountain pine beetle epidemic sweeping Colorado forests has taken a heavy toll on Steamboat Lake and Pearl Lake state parks, whose campgrounds were closed in October after being deemed unsafe after trees starting falling much earlier than expected...
The epidemic will have a drastic impact on camping availability in the summer.
Crews will begin cutting down beetle-killed and beetle-infected trees in Steamboat Lake State Park later this month, but because of the sheer number that must go, the park will have only limited camping availability this summer.
The two parks had a combined visitation of nearly 418,000 in the most recent fiscal year.
The park is using preemptive spraying to try to maintain the roughly 500 mature lodgepoles that remain near the campgrounds, but not even all of those trees have survived thus far.
(Excerpt) Read more at steamboatpilot.com ...
But the greenies feel better because these trees were killed by nature, not logging.
Are the Brits invading again?
the greenies are nuts
I don't believe that for a minute. Any competent ranger would IMMEDIATELY know and recognize a bark beetle infestation -- on the first few trees even.
My hunch is that the radical environmentalists got involved and delayed the spraying project. Now it's nearly too late.
Green kills.
No mention of replanting anything. They will just let the undergrowth take over. Mt. St. Helen’s is recovering this way.
This beetle infestation has been arriving for a long time.
Very few competent rangers left.
Many untrained PETA eco-weenies looking for an easy taxpayer pay check.
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