Massive Spruce Forest Dieoff Underway In Utah

[hatrack]

"From the Uinta Mountains on the Wyoming border to Dixie National Forest in the south, Utah's spruce trees are dying. Some forests may not return to their previous condition for hundreds of years.

Until recently, few vistas were as splendid as those unfolding along the Skyline Drive. Unpaved except for one small segment, the route wends for 87 miles along the mountainous backbone of central Utah, from Tucker to I-70. It is praised by one bicycling guide on the Internet as "Utah's highway to heaven." Driving or biking along the edge of the Wasatch Plateau, visitors could view and camp beneath beautiful stands of dark green Englemann spruce.

But no more. Now, these "evergreens" are turning orange and red. In Manti-LaSal National Forest alone, where most of Skyline Drive is located, an estimated 75,000 acres of spruce trees are dead or dying.

The forest will come back — but not for at least 300 years. The die-off is "pretty extreme," said Diane Cote, Manti-LaSal's forest silviculturist. "This and what has happened in Alaska are some of the worst we've ever documented."

EDIT

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595086146,00.html

[treepig]

1. what a waste

if only mr. dubya had gotten selected a few years earlier, these trees would have all been nicely and safely logged years ago, and this forest disatrophy would not now be unfolding.

:freak:

[GRClarkesq]

2. beetles + natural life cycle of the forest

I was looking for a pollution angle, which does not appear to be the case in this instance.