Question
We just traveled from Washington State through Idaho and Montana. Between Northern Idaho and Montana it looked like a fourth of the forest is dead with standing dry trees. What is causing this? Is there anyway to help stop it? Is it spreading? I was heartbroken to see so many dead trees.

Thank you so much for your time.

Jan

Answer
During the past several years, the West has been under a drought situation and the conifers have been attacked by Mountain Pine Beetle. Most of the forest land base is federal lands in the West and the trees in these lands have been poorly managed due to many reasons--court cases stopping cutting, federal internal rules, or just mis-management. The epidemic has gotten so large that the decision has been now to let it run its course. The mortality has been great but their is still a relucance to salvage the dead timber, to cut the amount of losses. Citizens like yourself can and should contact your local Federal Senators and Congressmen and encourage then to put pressure on the Federal Agencies mainly US Forest Service (USFS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to salvage and Control the beetles. Here are a couple of links for back ground: http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/fidls/we_pine_beetle/wpb.htm

http://www.safnet.org/archive/insect1201.cfm?printPage=1&