Imported Pest Hammering America's Remaining Old-Growth Hemlock Trees

[hatrack]

TOWNSEND, Tenn. — 'A tiny pest is sucking the life out of old-growth hemlock forests from Maine to Georgia. The hemlock woolly adelgid likes to settle on tender needles, form sticky white sacks resembling a dusting of snow and begin to feed. Five years later, the depleted tree is dead.

An Asian pest thought to have arrived on ornamental plants in the 1920s from Japan, the adelgids went largely unnoticed until their numbers exploded in the 1980s. Carried on the wind, birds' feet, backpackers' gear and landscapers' tools, the nearly microscopic aphid-like insects spread north from Virginia and more recently south into the Carolinas and Tennessee.

EDIT

Foresters compare the adelgid threat to the blight that killed off American chestnuts in the 1930s and 1940s, attacking trees of all ages, from saplings to centuries-old treasures. But while beneficial oaks supplanted the chestnuts, "there is not another evergreen that is going to replace hemlock in many settings," Johnson said. Hemlocks provide much of the shade to cool mountain streams. "When you lose that overstory component of hemlock, you have a cascading effect on other species," Johnson said. From the wood thrushes that nest in the trees to the insects and minnows that feed trout in once-canopied habitats, the ecological balance could be changed forever.

In Virginia's Shenandoah National Park, 80 percent of the hemlocks have died since the adelgid was first identified in 1988. "We have an overlook called Hemlock Springs Overlook," park spokeswoman Karen Beck-Herzog said. "We recently took down the sign because there are only dead hemlocks now. It had become a kind of joke, 'Dead Hemlock Springs Overlook.'"

EDIT

[fudge stripe cookays]

1. This is so sad!

I heard a story several weeks ago on NPR about an Emerald Ash Borer too. Working lots in the upper Midwest. Evidently Michigan is infested with them.

People were having to chop down 100 year old trees in these older neighborhods and were just bawling. I know I would.

FSC

[opihimoimoi]

2. The eco disaster continues and the funds were drained to cover war shit

if only we had our priorities in the right order. Global Warming first. all else don't compare to Global Warming.

[OneBlueSky]

3. in the past two weeks I've read about threats to . . .

pines in California, ash trees in the mid-Atlantic, oaks on the eastern seaboard, and now hemlocks . . . think we'll have ANY trees left when this is all over? . . . I still maintain that the environment is THE most critical issue that we should be dealing with . . . unfortunately, BushCo is doing just the opposite by reneging on environmental treaties and through the wholesale gutting of environmental legislation . . . we are s-o-o-o-o screwed! . . .

on edit: almost forgot to mention that the fundy right has textbook publishers denigrating environmentalism in the science texts that schools are using to teach our children . . . rather than science, these texts are fast becoming pr documents for the oil, timber, and agribusiness industries . . .

[fudge stripe cookays]

5. Good Christ....

Thanks for the info OBS. I hadn't heard this about the textbooks, not having any kids' textbooks to examine.

That is nauseating.

[OneBlueSky]

6. tis true . . . check out this article from salon.com . . .

They Ban Textbooks, Don't They?
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/11/05/textbooks/index2.html

(snip)

The second book, "Environmental Science: How the World Works and Your Place in It," was initially rejected by the board. It was finally published -- but only after its publisher, who desperately wanted the sale, agreed to allow it to be censored. According to the suit, unnamed state education officials and the publisher, J.M. LeBel Enterprises, had a late-night editing session during which the publisher agreed to change crucial passages about, among other things, global warming. (Cynthia Thornton, a member of the state Board of Education, called the text's pre-edited section on global warming "alarmist poppycock.")

A New York Times story on textbook censorship revealed some of the alterations. The Times reported, for example, that the sentence "Destruction of the tropical rain forest could affect weather over the entire planet" was changed to "Tropical rain forest ecosystems impact weather over the entire planet." The following remarkable sentence was added: "In the past, the earth has been much warmer than it is now, and fossils of sea creatures show us that the sea level was much higher than it is today. So does it really matter if the world gets warmer?" And this sentence was deleted: "Most experts on global warming feel that immediate action should be taken to curb global warming."

The publisher later told the New York Times that the process was akin to "book burning" and "100 percent political."

The third book reviewed and approved for use was "Global Science: Energy, Resources, Environment," 5th edition, by John W. Christensen, published by Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company. Flanakin of the TPPF approvingly noted that the book was prepared with the help of the industry organization American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers. Also, according to the New York Times, the book was partly funded by the Mineral Information Institute, a nonprofit group whose board is almost entirely composed of top mining industry officials. In his statement to the board, Duggan said he felt it was the "finest and most readable textbook" he had ever reviewed.

- more . . .

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/11/05/textbooks/index2.html

[ramapo]

4. Bad in NJ

I lost a hugh native hemlock and have to have the smaller trees I planted for screening sprayed with an oil twice a year. Spraying is just not practical for the big trees.

If I don't spray the little buggers quickly attack.

[Ricdude]

8. I'm afraid I'm in the same boat...

Something is eating my biggest hemlock tree alive. The smaller ones (all down the same fence line) look ok for now, but I'm not sure what to do about it. I'm afraid it's too late for the big one. =_(

[amandabeech]

7. Add that to sudden oak death and emerald ash borer,

and what tree species will be left? This is very bad news.

I wish that there was some way to at least get useful energy out of the burning of all these diseased trees. If this were an organized operation, assuming that the pests were eradicating in burning, you could then spread the resulting ashes back on the soil where the trees originally stood, thus providing some nutrients to trees that will take the place of the diseased.

I sometimes think the same of the trees dieing in the west due to the drought. I realize that some burning is necessary for the health of many forests, but it seems as though the intense fires that have swept the west go beyond what is necessary or helpful, and may even burn all the organic matter in the soils, including the seeds that would normally sprout after a fire.

Removing some burnables ahead of time might keep the inevitable fires in the helpful rather than destructive mode, and provide fuel for electric generation or even home heating, if done properly. Again, the ashes could be returned to the land from which the burnables were removed.