Pine Beetle

[Neil White]

I have been reading an article regarding the Pine Beetle in April's National Geographic.

For all sense and purposes it seems that a combination of warmer winters and change in management practices have allowed the beetle opportunity to destroy an area in excess of 44 million acres over a period of 15 years in British Columbia and 60 million acres from Northern New Mexico up to British Columbia.

Some of the photos that accompany the article are very stark indeed as is a map suggesting the epidemic could stretch as far as New England or California.

Has anyone had experience with this particular beetle and the damage it causes?

Just out of interest really.

[Stephen Pellegrino]

Not having read the article and not being an entomologist, I'm not sure that my experience is an apples to applese one. That said, I can vouch for the fact the courses on Cape Cod have been hit with what our superintendent calls pine borers. Whether these are beetles or boreing larvae, I cannot say. Damage to date has been sporadic and localized - certainly not an pandemic at this point.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Neil,

I read the same article with great interest.

I first saw the devastation caused by the pine beetle while we were building Sagebrush, in interior British Columbia, beginning back about 2006-07. You can see massive swaths of beautiful pine forest decimated on drives between Merritt-Kamloops, Merritt-Kelowna and Merritt-Vancouver. I can't remember the name of the course, but there's one in Kamloops that lost every pine tree. Very startling, really.

I'm working at Kelowna Golf and Country Club now, where they spend quite a bit of money spraying the most impressive pine trees on the property in an effort to keep the beetle away. This has only been mildly successful (and relatively expensive) to this point. There is a question, relative to successful beetle mutations, whether it's worth continuing to spray at Kelowna.

I was also interested in planting some native pine species at the new Derrick Club, in Edmonton. As you may recall from the National Geographic article, experts are trying to create a "break" in the pine forest in Alberta. Pine forests have been removed and burned there in an effort to stop the beetle from moving further east. So, pine might be out of the question at the Derrick Club unfortunately. These are some very beautiful trees this bug is destroying.

[Tommy Williamsen]

The mountain pine beetle has been devastating to the pines in Colorado for twenty years, though its impact seems to be declining.

http://www.9news.com/story/news/local/2014/09/09/destructive-mountain-pine-beetle-declining-in-colorado/15371389/

I am most familiar with the infestation in Colorado, because of my frequent visits.  Evidently, the problem is pretty widespread.

http://www.nps.gov/romo/learn/nature/mtn_pine_beetle_background.htm

[Ben Sims]

We had plenty of issues with what my grandfather called "pine bark beetles" at our loblolly tree farm in west Georgia in the mid-late 90's. I'm not sure if the species is the same as the infestations in Colorado and beyond, but the results sure are. There wasn't a thing to do except cut it out like a tumor. If you found 4-5 trees with beetles in them, you cut down every tree within a specified radius (usually two or three trunks out from the infected trees) and burned it all.

In my college days in Colorado, the beetle infestation was starting to become noticeable in many of the forests. And now, driving on the west side of the Eisenhower tunnel down into Silverthorne is nearly unrecognizable. It's going to take a long time for those forests to come back. And the fire danger in them is extreme.

[Bob Jenkins]

Having driven from the Vancouver area up to Predator Ridge in the Okanagan Valley or up to Sagebrush on countless occasions, I can underline Jeff's comments on the devastation. There are vast areas where huge areas have been cleared of dead pine caused by the beetle. We are told that it is due to a warming climate in which we no longer have extended periods of sub-freezing temperatures which historically have killed off the beetle.

For several years, some of the pine trees at Predator Ridge had been sprayed and there was a mesh wrapped around the trunk in an effort to keep the beetles at bay, but several of those trees have been lost in spite of the efforts to save them. There is apparently no known pesticide or other means of killing the beetle other than lengthy, very cold spells in the winter.

Many trees have been lost due to the beetle but the biggest loss in British Columbia has been to the logging industry, which is huge. Many of the dead pines have been sent off to Japan where they make furniture from the remains. However the worst is the millions of acres of dead trees which have to be cleared due to the threat of forest fires in areas of dead trees due to the mountain pine beetle.

In some cases, the result has been a clearing of trees which is welcome in most cases but on the coast, where we have a warm and moist climate, there has been little effect. The courses away from the coast and up towards Alberta will suffer the most as will be the case in eastern Washington and Oregon.

Not good.

[Pete_Pittock]

In Oregon. most visible destruction by the pine beetle is along Santiam Pass on the route from Salem to Bend. The courses most likely to be affected as in the Ssters/Redmond/Bend area such as Black Butte, Sunriver and Aspen Lakes. Driving in BC I have seen many trucks hauling away diseased trees, buttoned up like nuclear waste.

[Robert Mercer Deruntz]

For better tree management, Sun Peaks ski resort is expandinisg because of this devestation.  Evidently,  the beetles have created quite a few new runs and so they decided to add a few chairlifts, which for the next couple of years before Jumbo Glacier opens, makes this the third largest resort in North America. 

[Greg Murphy]

My understanding is that fundamental to the current beetle devastation is the reduction of natural wildfire over the past century resulting in forests much "older" and more susceptible to attack than would have been the case had the cycles of natural fire disturbance and renewal been allowed to run their course. I suppose that would be easy to test by looking at areas disturbed by fire to see if they are being killed by the beetle at the same rate as the areas we have tried to preserve.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Greg,

Along with the absence of colder temperatures, a significant reduction in natural forest fires was another interesting fact in the National Geographic article.

[Neil White]

For those interested the article can be found here: -

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/04/pine-beetles/rosner-text

What struck me is that this is an issue that doesn't appear to have an easy fix - spraying; too expensive, developing tolerant species; too time prohibitive. 

Also that there doesn't appear, or at least it's not mentioned, of a natural predator to the beetle?

Let's hope it doesn't make it out of Alberta into the Boreal Mountains as should it, the picture seems very bleak indeed.

[Greg Murphy]

It's a good article. Systems adjust and nature goes on. In that adjustment we don't lose acres but we do lose "friends". Forests are a defining feature of classic Canadian golf courses especially those in the National Park System such as Banff, Jasper, Waskesiu, Riding Mountain, Highlands Links, etc. All are forest environment landscapes. These forests and the trees that make them up are great friends to look at from afar and from within, wander among and even take in their scent and sound. Bears and cougars aside, they are really friendly and inspirational habitats for humans and we feel tremendous sense of loss when entire forests of majestic trees die and are replaced in the cycle with something not nearly as appealing. In the end the loss has more to do with sentiment than ecology, but I am not one to argue letting nature take its course ought to always win out over sentiment.

[Tom_Doak]

You can see the effects up in the hills all around Rock Creek in Montana.  It has not affected any of the trees adjacent to the golf holes, as of yet.

[Ken Moum]

I've concluded that bark beetles are Gaia's way of telling us we've too damned many pine trees.

In that Black Hills of SD, my wildlife manager co-workers at the state game and fish dept. consistently complained that the Forest Service worked far too hard to convert aspen stands to.ponderosa pine.  The pine is more valuable as timber, but the aspens are are much more productive as wildlife habitat.  And the diversity is just a good thing.

Nothing is less productive for wildlife than monoculture.

[David Davis]

Just wondering if these can be exported with no penalties? I know 5 holes full of pine trees that are simply dying to be acquainted with some very hungry pine beetles. :-)