Won’t say anything about global warming …
just show you what little bitty green pine beetles can do in very short order, when weather (the natural deterrent) cannot keep them in check. This is what a goodly portion of my beautiful SD Black Hills look like now. It’s heart breaking to say the very least. All it will take is one spark, and the Black Hills will be the Bleak Hills.
“Will not be political or religious”, that’s no fun. Just kidding. Pine beetle are non-political but may be the spawn of Satan. I had a large pine tree cut at my last house when it was opportune rather than wait for it to die due to pine beetles. Those trees could be harvested for pulp I think if the owner (governemt?) would allow it and cut down the fire risk and use the wood for a good purpose. We still make a lot of paper in the USA.
Betty we had the same thing happen a couple of years back in my part of Oregon. In fact I posted some pictures similiar to yours in FAOL. So far we have been lucky and not had any major fires started in that portion of the forest. However we have had a lot fires in other parts. Just lucky because what is waiting for a lightning strike in all our dead lodgepole pine.
Biggest problem for me with fly fishing is that many of the dead trees have fallen or be cut down over the streams making them a pain in the posterior to fish.
I feel for you.
Tim
When there are hundreds of thousands of acres involved, it’s near impossible to cut them all. All through Wyoming , South Dakota, and Nebraska we also saw the results of carelessly tossed cigarettes, lightning strikes, and un watched campfires. The air was thick with smoke from forest fires and range fires. (only kewl parts were the flame red sunrises and sunsets!). It’s all going to go up in a heartbeat, and will never be the same again.
Very saddening! I’ve seen the same thing in Montana and it’s very disheartening!
Betty,
Not all that comes post fire is bad:
http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ww0604f.htm
Though I certainly agree that fire started carelessly or maliciously by man is disgusting I also look at fire started by nature as part of the cycle of maintaining a healthy ecosystem. It is yet another part of nature like the weather that must run it’s normal cycle.
You stirred up a memory of a old friend from high school and college. He used to catch a ride with me from home back to school after I got a car. Bill Gabbert was a quiet kid , who was in the band and majored in Forestry at Ms. State. Apparently he has been fighting forest fires for a good while now.
We can see it every day from our home here in Livingston…awful.
It hasn’t hit our immediate area yet, but Winter Park (not too far west as the pine beetle flies), has been hit hard. There were reports in the first two years of tourists asking locals where they could buy “one of those pretty red pine trees”.
We have the same problems with the Pine Bark Beetle here on the east coast also. Between those and the Gypsy Moths, we are loosing a lot of good trees. In the Nat./State forests they won’t let anyone go in and remove the dead ones nor will they spray the outside edges of the dead areas. Every time any thing is said about possibly spraying, the environmentalists threaten lawsuits. After a while, the tree-huggers will only have dead trees to wrap their arms around.