MT To Spray Carbaryl (Sevin) In Forests Hit By Pine Beetles - "Does Seem To Affect Smaller Birds"

[hatrack]

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Trees in designated Helena National Forest campgrounds and at trailheads will be sprayed with carbaryl early next week if the weather permits, forest officials said Tuesday. The insecticide also will be used in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge, the Lewis and Clark and the Gallatin national forests, said Gregg DeNitto, group leader for forest-health protection at the Forest Service regional office in Missoula.

Carbaryl, with trade names that include Sevin, will be sprayed from the ground to soak tree trunks. Officials with the Helena forest said public-use areas will be closed for 24 hours before spraying and for 48 hours afterward. Carbaryl dries quickly, DeNitto said. "It is used on trees that have not been attacked so we can keep them from being attacked," he said.

Carbaryl is toxic to fish and aquatic insects, and the Forest Service does not plan to use it near water. One alternative is a pheromone treatment in pouches stapled to trees. That treatment is less effective against pine beetles than is carbaryl, DeNitto said. Janet Ellis of the Montana Audubon staff said some of the bird organization's members have expressed concern about forest use of carbaryl.

Federal tests that found it "practically nontoxic to birds" involved larger birds such as mallards, but there are anecdotal reports of harm to small birds, Ellis said. "It does seem to affect smaller birds, but no one's really done the work to know," she said. Aerial surveys last year found about 1.8 million acres of Montana attacked by beetles, mostly the mountain pine beetle, DeNitto said. The Forest Service estimated some 17 million trees were on those lands. The southwestern part of the state has been hit particularly hard, DeNitto said.

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http://www.idahostatesman.com/idahonews/story/797259.html

[Cleita]

1. That's bad. Sevin kills the useful bugs as well as the bad ones.

The beetles are the results of third growth forests that lack the genetic diversity to keep their populations low. This is the result of generations of logging and replanting from potted plants instead of letter mother nature do it her way. The only way to do this effectively is to harvest the dead trees and let mother nature seed from existing trees. Beetle resistant trees will eventually arise from those in the forest that are so. They will grow and spread through natural selection and evolution. Of course it will take generations but Sevin is not the answer.

[Fotoware58]

2. Actually...

massive blooms of bark beetles came from the masses of trees that survived the fires, but lost the battle to the bark beetles. We keep seeing this scenario being played over and over in other National Forests. Fires and drought make all trees susceptible to bark beetles and when salvage efforts were eliminated, this provided a huge "buffet" for bark beetles to feast on, resulting in unnatural clouds of them overwhelming even healthy trees. We've seen this before but no one is willing to do what science says to do. Most people feel that "letting nature take its course" is the way to go to stop accelerated bark beetle mortality and catastrophic wildfires. However, these people aren't scientists. There is no such thing as a "beetle resistant tree"!! Trees defend themselves by producing pitch and sap to push the beetle's eggs out of the cambium layer. The only real solution is to thin out vastly overcrowded forests and to salvage dead and dying trees to reduce the beetle's future populations.

Alas, that won't be happening until we wise-up and use science instead of Gaia worship. The science is there but, it's just not politically-palatable. (See the Waxman-Markey ban on using Federal biomass for renewable energy!)

Yes, global warming is a factor in this but, relief from that surely isn't coming soon. Meanwhile, forests are going away and people prefer to just watch.

[Cleita]

3. Bark beetles were killing the trees in Tahoe. Biologists did a study and

discovered that the lack of genetic diversity in the third growth forest was allowing them to spread when the right climatic conditions were present. It turns out some of the trees genetically repel them. In an old growth forest there is enough variety to keep any such pests at a minimum. However, whether we do it with your feasting method or otherwise, using pesticides is a last resort and should never be used unless it's a matter of life and death like bugs that spread a plague for instance. I hope better science prevails. Sometimes the forest department biologists are just as off because they let their political bias influence them. I have seen them approve of clear cutting in forests as a scientific way of managing them. Clearly they were kowtowing to commercial lumber interests.

[Fotoware58]

5. That may be partially true but...

many people prefer to believe that global warming is entirely at fault for these massive die-offs. While it surely is a factor it is NOT the root of the problem. Historically, the Tahoe Basin was an open pine-dominated forest, with frequent fires to clear out the brush and the true firs. When the Comstock Lode came along, the big pines were cut and shipped over the hill into the Carson Valley to go into the silver mines. They left the true firs at the mid-elevations, started suppressing fires and the drought susceptible firs had a MUCH bigger piece of the forest than was "natural". As the fondness for Tahoe grew and grew, forest management waned and we saw a massive die-off during the late 80's and early 90's, in both the second growth pines and the the established firs. even the oldest of pines could not survive the onslaught. Salvage efforts were minimal and much of those dead trees remain standing or on the ground, waiting for the next fire to start. The Angora Fire was a perfect example of how bad these firestorms WILL be.

Long, long ago, they tried the clearcutting and that just hasn't been an issue for many years, especially in California, which banned ALL Federal clearcutting WAY back in 1993. Biologists have known for many years that merely cutting the dead trees has zero effect on bark beetles. The cutting of "brain-dead" green trees within an affected areas DOES have an effect, though. (Some girdled trees will remain green for a few months, although I have seen green trees suddenly turn red, seemingly overnight.) Most of my career has been spent salvaging dead and dying trees so, I DO know what I am talking about. We cut 300 million board feet of bug salvage on just one smaller Ranger District during 1989 to 1993, far surpassing what is a sustainable cut of timber there. Other National Forests during that time period were litigated against and now have fuel build-ups far, far beyond critical levels.

Even if some trees truly ARE genetically-resistant, they cannot defend themselves when there isn't any water to suck up. At least one species of bark beetles will emit a pheromone to draw in more bark beetles to completely overwhelm a sizable patch of pines. It is all a part of the ongoing forest disaster that few recognize IS happening, here and now, in the west. Trees that survived hundreds of years, including severe droughts are NOT surviving today, because of overstocked thickets growing underneath. For the most part, most of our forests ARE doomed, unless we reduce stocking levels to a more "natural" state.

If we don't act, fires will "re-balance" forests in ways we humans will surely not like. Fires will rage and forests will vaporize.

[Cleita]

6. That's what happened in Yellowstone. They let the big fires rage on for weeks back

I believe in the eighties some time. My husband and I visited about five years later. Although the burned out areas were bleak looking the forest was coming back. I think the foresters made the right decision. Of course Yellowstone doesn't have all the population areas other forests do so I'm sure that is a big factor in not letting the fires do their job.

[Fotoware58]

7. Lodgepole pines

Those trees are a different situation. Their natural cycle is to dominate the land with crowded stands, get attacked by bark beetles and burn in fires, only to have their stockpile of seeds start the cycle all over again. Ponderosa pines are totally different, in that seed crops occur only every so many years, AND that their seeds can only travel a relatively short distance. The mixture of the two pines makes for extremely damaging firestorms, killing off the ponderosa pines and encouraging brush and lodgepole thickets.

In Yellowstone, they pretty much had their hands tied, as it was inside a National Park. I almost went there to fight fire back in '88 but was diverted to LA to work on a fire near Lake Arrowhead. A buddy of mine went to Yellowstone and saw that he could walk for miles on the fallen tree trunks as the fire raged on. He actually had to run from the fires once.

Now that I am on disability retirement, all I have to offer is my decades of experience and my desire to save forests.

[Cleita]

9. I'm sure tree experts could have a better solution than pesticides.

When I was a novice gardner, I used Sevin and succeeded in killing not only the pests I was trying to eradicate, but the bees, butterflies and other bugs as well as the birds who feed on them who left. I'm strictly organic now. Beetles destroyed all the Monterey pines on our property but one. It's growing and making cones. I might plant one to see if I get a tree, a beetle resistant tree. Anyway, I do want to thank you for putting your life on the line to save our forests. I love the wilderness myself but consider the clear cutting human beetles the biggest threat.

[Fotoware58]

10. Clearcutting is a non-issue

Come join us in the new millenium, as clearcutting was decided to be bad back in the early 90's, folks. The last clearcut I helped install was back in 1989, and that was all bug infested. There are new issues to be settled but, what will it take to prove that wildfires are always bad for forests? What will it take to reduce wildfire intensities that completely destroy entire ecosystems? What will it take to prove that clever scientific forest management is the way to restoring forest ecosystems?

What will it take?!?!?!

Democrats and Republicans alike banded together to pass "Healthy Forests" but, since it didn't get much funding, it was a total failure. "Healthy Forests" was a response to the big fires in the Los Angeles mountains but, contrary to popular belief, it wasn't a Republican creation. Democrats insisted (and rightly so!) on rewriting many parts of the Act, otherwise, they wouldn't vote for it. Litigations gutted the rest of it and I truly believe that Bush didn't fund it for partisan political reasons.

What will it take?!?!?!

The current response is to let massive wildfires burn during our hot and dry summers in huge areas up to 100,000 acres. Burning a forest to save it?!? That's sheer lunacy!

What will it take?!?!?!?

[Cleita]

11. Burning it to save it is scientific. There's a movie about it at the

Natural History museum in Los Angeles. Apparently the burn cycles are necessary and nature's way of clearing dead debris and renewing the life cycle. However, nowadays with the hotter and drier weather we are experiencing with global warning, I don't know what the solution is any more.

Healthy forests legislation was a joke. It was another way for the lumber industry to go in the back door and harvest the good trees while leaving the flammable scrub trees behind.

[Fotoware58]

12. Sorry, but...

you are clearly wrong on this. Prescribed fire can reduce fuel loadings but Let-Burn wildfires burn EVERYTHING!

I don't buy into the rhetoric your repeating about "Healthy Forests". Yes, it WAS a failure but, only because there was no funding and no support from the courts. Clearly, some judges think they know everything about forests. "Healthy Forests" was meant to go in and thin our forests, taking a scant few trees in the 20-30" diameter range to help pay for the costs of taking all the little stuff. Show us all a link to prove your assertion, please.

[Barrett808]

13. In addition, the uniform age of the lodgepole pines is a problem

At least in BC, the lodgepoles are second growth and almost the same age -- apparently, a mix of ages provides some protection against pine beetles, as they have a preference for older trees. Or so I've heard.

[Cleita]

15. That's true because that's the conclusion the biologists in Tahoe came

up with.

[Fotoware58]

16. Even-age is a "natural" state for lodgepole pines

We need to avoid hearsay, political rhetoric and junk science if we are going to mitigate the effects of global warming on our forests. Attempting to deal with pure lodgepoles stands will result in failure. They have their own "natural" programming. However, when they invade other types of forests, they eliminate those other trees' natural advantages in exchange for intense flammability. Naturally-cool fires favor trees like ponderosa pines but, those types of fires just don't exist anymore. We HAVE to intervene or lose those higher quality forests, in favor of the catastrophic cycles of the lodgepole pines. If you didn't know it, lodgepole pine forests do not support endangered species like owls and goshawks and other forms of wildlife.

The best minds in forest ecosystems say that man's intervention is necessary to save old growth forests.

[Barrett808]

17. Thanks for the 411

Agree that the best science must be the template for policy.

[Barrett808]

4. Some photos to convey the enormous scale of the mass die-off of Western forests:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3702278&mesg_id=3703443

[Fotoware58]

8. Back to the topic

I worked on a project several years ago to do exactly the same thing in the campgrounds and picnic sites on the San Bernardino National Forest. They weren't very happy with us selecting so many trees that we deemed to be "irreplacable" but, that was our call. They did complete the spraying and I wonder if anyone knows how successful that program really was. Carbaryl is the substance used in flea collars for pets.

[pscot]

18. Welcome to the forum

Everyone has an opinion, but comments by people who actually know what they're talking about raise the tone of the place.

[Fotoware58]

19. Here's the study and the results

While it's a bummer that trees have to be treated with insecticides, due to a severe lack of stewardship during drought, I tend to think that it's better than hundreds of stumps in recreation areas.

http://joa.isa-arbor.com/request.asp?JournalID=1&ArticleID=2962&Type=2

What do you folks think?

[Barrett808]

14. 60 Minutes: The Age of Mega-Fires

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/18/60minutes/main3380176.shtml

Obligatory link; excellent coverage.