STEAMBOAT SPRINGS - Mountain pine beetles are obliterating a forest that stretches from British Columbia to Mexico, and in the process are creating a hazard for fire, public safety and water supply. “What we’re looking at is an entire lodgepole pine forest dying right before our eyes,” said Gary Severson, executive director of the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments.
Severson described the problem to the Colorado Water Congress at its convention last week. The effects of the beetles were obvious to those who drove to the conference from any direction, with devastation ranging from small stands of red trees among the green in some places to whole scarred hillsides turning to gray.
So far, more than 1 million acres of lodgepole pines have been destroyed and another 3 million will be wiped out in Colorado. The damage so far is confined to 15 counties in the northwest part of the state, but is spreading over mountain ridges and moving southward. More than 22 million acres eventually will be destroyed in the American West. Meanwhile, the beetles are making their way across Canada toward the Atlantic Ocean as well.
The beetles are native, their cycles natural and their target specific: lodgepole pines. However, a combination of factors have made this infestation unprecedented in the scope of its damage, said Don Carroll, deputy supervisor of the White River National Forest. The lack of logging has created a higher proportion of large, older trees in the forests. They’re all about the same age and equally vulnerable. Drought has weakened the trees. The beetles have survived more easily through mild winters.
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http://www.chieftain.com/metro/1188194669/2Hmm . . . hardly a word on warming in the entire article. Strange, huh?