Beetle scourge goes from bad to worse

Denver Post ^ | 15 jan 08 | Howard Pankratz

[rellimpank]

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.

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."

[blackdog]

DDT doesn't work on the lifecycle of this critter. And DDT is still made in hugh quantities. It's banned as an active ingredient in pesticides. So in other countries they just lower the ratio percentage and it's now an inactive ingredient coupled with something else. Our mistake in this country was when they sprayed it all summer long at nights in neighborhoods all over the country for mosquito control in the 70's. They did it from trucks, helicopters, and aircraft.

Idiots!

[NavyCanDo]

On our Honeymoon 12 years ago we were staying at an expensive Mountain resort Lodge in the North Cascade. In the morning the floor seemed to be moving, we looked closer and found dozens of Pine beetle larva moving around. We at first thought they were maggots until the front desk explained what they were, and that sometimes they do come in to the building. Very gross. In the closet when we were packing up to leave we found hundreds more.

[goodnesswins]

Was that Sun Mountain?

[Larry Lucido]

I think I saw that same headline back in 1962.

[Jack Black]

The “static area” is North America. These beetles have destroyed a ton of trees in British Columbia. The only hope is a uper-killing frost. I forget the termperature but the larve die somewhere around 20 or 30 below. If it gets that cold and stays there they can be stopped.

[LexBaird]

Confidential to lodgepole pines: evolve, dammit. Get some natural defenses going.

They've got a great natural defense for this. Mature trees die, they burn down killing the beetle infestation, the heat reaches the needed temperature to open the resin sealed cones, the seeds drop, and new lodgepoles grow in the newly opened meadows.

The problem is that burns were stopped for decades, and so were the clear-cutting that replaced them. Now, the forests are continuous, with no natural or artificial fire breaks. Therefore, the trees are ALL mature and subject to the beetles.

This was the same cause of the fires that devastated Yellowstone in the 80's.

[NavyCanDo]

Was that Sun Mountain?

Yep. Great place, but hit it at the wrong time of year.

[LexBaird]

I wonder what would happen if they discovered that DDT would provide a good defense against the spread of this beetle plague? Would they start producing this chemical again?

Not effective on a forest wide basis, but if you just want to save the trees on your lot, I understand diesel oil kills them by suffocation.

[george76]

Thanks for the ping.

The DUmmie media is just now discovering this fact.

At least their hair is perfect.

/s

[norton]

"The bad news is the beetles won't attack pine trees in "Wilderness Areas" where roads have been closed to preserve the trees. "

I think you've got it wrong:
The beetles spread faster in dense Forest, lots of reasons but the article cites density as a big factor. Traditional 'wilderness areas' implies no effort to thin out or to remove damaged trees - which is also a factor in fires.

Human access is not a factor in this.
Human policies that kept land 'unspoiled' are a factor.

Two other points:
I remember watching the spread in the Boulder area back in the eighties. You could see it literally from month to month way back then. It's amazing to me that over 20 years were insufficient to develop any countermeasures. And,
I wonder if, after clearing large chunks of wasted Forest, resistant trees (not different pines) could be imported?

[Dumb_Ox]

Alamosa, CO wasn’t nicknamed “The Nation’s Icebox” for no reason. While rare, -40 was not unheard of in the mountains around the San Luis Valley.

I thought Fraser, CO was the Icebox. I was there for a -34 degree night in the late 1980s

[greyfoxx39]

I see Fraser is contending for the title now...I left CO many years ago, but in the 60s Alamosa was called the ice box of the nation.

[Kevmo]

Colorado needs to hire this lady, PhD in studying Beetles:

http://janalee.net/z_pdf/CV-JanaLee-2pg.pdf