Brittany's Blog

Previously posted on my Thrillhead Blog

If you drive up to the mountains and take a look around, you’ll see what’s happening- Colorado’s forests are dying. Beautiful forested landscapes once full of life now look browned and dead- almost as bad as a forest fire that has swept nearly the whole northern part of the state

The first reports I heard of it were about 5 years ago. The pine beetle was attacking trees near Grand Lake. It didn’t take long for this to become an epidemic, with reports of pine beetle attacks in Steamboat and Summit County.

I started really pondering the pine beetle kill just this fall, when I was driving by the devastated forest in Summit County. The beautiful blue Dillon Lake is surrounded by a forest of dead trees. What few trees are alive there will probably be dead by next summer. It really hit me then -The devastation of the pine beetle was really impacting this state, and the pine beetle wasn’t going to stop. I started noticing new dead patches of trees showing up in mountains everywhere.

But when it really hit me was when I drove over Berthoud Pass to Winter Park in early November. I had not made that drive since last April. In April, there were patches of dead trees in the forest, but the forest was still beautiful. I was devastated when this fall I saw that the forest was more brown than green. Thousands of trees had been attacked by beetles over the summer. Even worse, the beetle kill had spread from the west side of the pass over to the east side, spreading quickly down to lower elevations.

(Beetle kill seen on east side of Berthoud Pass)

(Looking down at the east side of Berthoud Pass from Jones Pass)

I started wondering more about the pine beetle. Why are we having such an epidemic? Will it ever stop? What can we expect? What’s going to happen to our forests? Will everything just burn?

With that in mind, I decided to do some research on my own. Here’s what I found out overall:

The pine beetle has always been around. The pine beetle attacks primarily lodgepole and ponderosa pines in Colorado. The beetle “attacks” the tree by laying eggs in the bark. When the larvae hatch out of the egg, they kill the tree. The beetles must attack each tree in huge swarms or else the tree will defend itself with the natural resin. But, when swarmed, the tree is helpless. There have been outbreaks in the past, but this is one of Colorado’s worst epidemics in the high country. My coworker who has lived in Boulder most of his long life remembers that there was an epidemic in lower ponderosa pines on the Front Range, which led to most of those pines dying. Eventually, so many of the ponderosas died that it stopped being such an outbreak.

Why is the high country having such an outbreak now? Part of the outbreak is a bit of a natural cycle. Pine beetles seem to attack older trees. Colorado’s forests are full of older trees due to years and years of natural fire suppression. In some respects, this is nature’s way of getting back at us for trying to control the forests. The pine trees are also weakened by drought, and Colorado has had drought conditions more years than not since I’ve lived here. The culprit that I didn’t expect to hear much about was global warming. It seems global warming is making it easier for the beetle to live as well. “The cold temperatures made it impossible for them to complete their life cycle in one year, forcing them to confront a second winter at a vulnerable point in their development. The adult beetles also couldn’t synchronize their emergence and flight from their birthplaces. With so few beetles attacking new trees at any one time, healthy trees could defend themselves by drowning the tiny beetles in resin. Under these conditions, beetles could only kill diseased and otherwise weakened trees.” (http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=14853) But, rising global temperatures have made it easier for the beetles to complete their life cycle in one year, as well as making it possible for them to survive at higher elevations. Warmer temperatures have also allowed the beetle to synchronize “their emergence, allowing them to join forces and overwhelm tree defenses.”

(Courtesy of Denver Post)

So, what is needed to kill the beetles? “For freezing temperatures to affect a large number of larvae during the middle of winter, temperatures of at least 30 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit) must be sustained for at least five days” (http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05528.html). Winter Park seemed to have a lot of cold temperatures last winter, but none were apparently cold enough for long enough. Temperatures are unlikely to be this cold, especially since we are in a trend of rising temperatures.

What does this mean for our forest? I don’t know. It seems like the pines in our forests will mostly die from this beetle kill epidemic. There is worry about massive forest fires. But, I found this fact interesting: “Lodgepole trees do increase in fire danger significantly during the short span when the trees are full of dead, red needles. However, once the needles fall off leaving the gray snags, fire danger actually goes down below that of a live green tree. Fire danger then increases as the tree falls and becomes part of the understory” (http://news.snowhome.com/public/item/153430). It does seem that our forests will be hugely impacted by this tiny little beetle. The optimist in me hopes that the dying pine trees will be replaced by another tree that is more resistant to pine beetles. There is no doubt in my mind that the ecosystems in our forests will have to undergo a great change.

Can beetle kill be stopped? As far as I can tell, no. Some people try spraying trees, but can you really spray hundreds of thousands of acres of forest effectively? No. The Canadians say that logging and clear-cutting are not good solutions either (http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Forests/Canada/BC/Beetle/
). It seems that this is an issue Mother Nature will have to take care of herself, once she’s done taking care of all the other problems out there.

No one knows what future lies ahead for Colorado’s forests. But, I can tell you we are not alone. Beetle kill epidemics are widespread across the entire western portions of the United States and Canada, with Idaho, Alaska, and British Columbia having seen the worst devastation.

Hopefully Mother Nature will help us out soon!

Resources

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_4287134

http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05528.html

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Forests/Canada/BC/Beetle/

http://denver.yourhub.com/AuroraSouth/Stories/News/Politics/Story~319142.aspx

http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=14853

http://news.snowhome.com/public/item/153430