Posted for Nancy Yearout
nyearout@colorado.net
http://www.realestate-breckenridge.net
The spread of the mountain pine beetle epidemic, which has swept through forests
across Colorado since 1996, is slowing significantly, according to the state's
recently released annual aerial forest health survey.
The U.S. Forest
Service and Colorado State Forest Service reported that the epidemic has
expanded by 31,000 acres in 2012, as compared to the 140,000-acre increase in
2011.
“Generally speaking, the mountain pine beetle epidemic in Summit
County is definitely declined,” said Cary Green, U.S. Forest Service timber
management assistant for the White River National Forest eastern zone. “We
haven't seen any widespread damage since 2009/2010. I think Summit County's
clear in that.”
Though the epidemic is declining, Green said that it
doesn't mean the beetles are gone completely. It will be possible for pockets of
trees to be affected in the future.
“They're always going to be in the
ecosystem,” he added.
Nearly 3.4 million acres in Colorado have been
infested by the mountain pine beetle since the initial outbreak in 1996. Most
mature lodgepole pine trees have now been depleted within the initial epidemic
area.
Mountain pine beetles aren't the only insect causing havoc on
Colorado's trees, however. While the pine beetles seem to be in decline, the
recent report stated that the spruce beetle outbreak has started to expand.
Nearly 1 million acres have been affected since 1996, including 183,000
additional acres detected in 2012.
The majority of the spruce beetle
devastation has occurred in southern Colorado in the San Juan and Rio Grande
national forests. Though spruce beetles have shown up in Summit County, Green
said they do not appear to be in very large numbers.
Unlike mountain pine
beetles, which attack standing trees, spruce beetles prefer fallen trees, where
they build up their population before attacking nearby weaker trees. Similar to
mountain pine beetle, the increase in spruce beetle activity is due to factors
that increase tree stress, including densely stocked stands, ongoing drought
conditions and warmer winters.
According to Green, spruce beetle
infestation is harder to spot, because the needles simply fall off rather than
change color as with the mountain pine beetle.
Green said that the main
focus right now is to deal with the remnants of the beetle kill as well as
increase the health of the forest to make it less susceptible to future beetle
attacks, of any kind.
“(We're) trying to get most of the dead trees out
where we can, trying to utilize the trees in some sort of product so they don't
go to waste,” Green said. “And regenerating the next future forest is obviously
the goal as well.”
This will come in the form of planting trees in areas
of high use, such as recreation areas. In other parts, Green said, lodgepole
trees will start to come back on their own, particularly younger trees that
survived the beetle epidemic and are therefore much less likely to succumb to
beetles.
Courtesy of the Summit Daily News
