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Meet the Beetles

Monday, March 6, 2006; Page A14

The article on the beetle infestation of Canada's western forests [" 'Rapid Warming' Spreads Havoc in Canada's Forests; Tiny Beetles Destroying Pines," front page, March 1] was incomplete.

During the 1970s the mountain pine beetle ate its way through millions of acres of lodgepole pine in the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Rocky Mountain ecosystems. In 1979 the Northern Rocky Mountain ecosystem had average daily highs at zero degrees or less for the month of January, with many days reaching 45 degrees below zero. The hope of forestry experts and logging companies, as well as the scientific theory at the time, was that extreme cold would slow or stop the infestation. It did not, a fact that runs counter to the claims still made by Canadian researchers that colder winters slow infestations.

The article also did not mention the positive long-term effects of the beetle infestation of Canada's forests. For that, look no farther than the huge fires that raged through Yellowstone National Park and Glacier National Park in 1988, fueled in part by trees that had died from beetle infestation. Today those "devastated" forests are vibrant with life.

JOHN MARSHALL

Casanova, Va.

·

The mountain pine beetle is not

just devastating forests north of the border.

Along with its cousins the Douglas fir beetle and the spruce beetle, it also is chomping its way through big swatches of U.S. national forests in Wyoming, Idaho and other Western states. The beetles have even reached parts of Yellowstone National Park.

Out here, some of us think the headquarters of the U.S. Forest Service and of the National Park Service should do more than wring their hands as the infestation spreads.

JOE ALBRIGHT

Jackson Hole, Wyo.


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