| Chugach
National Forest Beetle infestation, Alaksa |
Don
Bertolette |
| Jul
25, 2002 17:39 PDT |
Bob-
As it turns out, I found the original message that I sent to
ENTS/Erth, and
am pasting it below. I was a part of this, and as you might
expect, can
further discuss it if asked.
-Don
Erth-
After reading your posted Black Hills article, I was reminded
of my stay in
Alaska during the 1990's. I arrived at the beginning of spruce
bark beetle
infestation. There were significant differences between the
Black Hills
National Forest and the Chugach National Forest where I
worked. The Chugach
was and is essentially a 'recreation forest' as the Timber
Program was very
small (the reconstruction of parts of the Anchorage to Seward
Highway
involved more board footage than the annual cut).
Six years later, the infestation had spread across ALL of
south central
Alaska (let's say equivalent to a major proportion of New
England). As of
my departure, more than 95% of all white/Lutz spruce was
killed. The first
to be impacted were the recreationists (hikers and bikers had
difficulty
passing through trails jackstrawed with downed spruce),
followed shortly by
Alaska's "charismatic megafauna" such as moose, who
have significant stride
height, but were confounded by snow hiding much of the tree.
Long term
effects I suspect now include a drastically changed watershed
dynamic with
significantly less moisture transpired with so much of the
spruce now gone.
An aggressive spruce bark beetle program back when the
infestations were
small and localized may have significantly reduced the
eventual decimation.
A timber induced monoculture incapable of fighting off a
single species
disease? No, very little logging historically. Mimicks large
catastrophic
fire disturbance? Not much history of fire disturbance on the
Kenai
Peninsula, or other locations either, as the spruce most
commonly occupied
slopes leading away from marine locations. Climate change?
Could be
something to that, as dryer warmer winters were favorable to
the spruce bark
beetle's overwintering.
Could the BHNF be doing the right thing? I think they could
be. Could the
BHNF fall prey to timber interests? They could, and you'd know
better than
I. Is stopping them altogether like throwing out the baby with
the
bathwater? Let's hope that a compromise is reachable that
effectively
minimizes the beetle infestation/fire danger, but doesn't
unnecessarily
diminish the healthy forest that remains.
-DonB
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