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December 16, 2004  Red is Beautiful I cast my eyes over the sales table. On it, all manner of Christmas decorations were strewn. There were gold sleighs and bells, silver ornaments in small boxes and matte-green wreaths made of some kind of artificial material that hinted at the verdant shiny evergreens they were meant to imitate. Returning from town, driving through the wintry landscape, I caught myself enjoying the red of dead pines against a backdrop of green pines, all part of the snow laden forest. There was no denying it, the red pine trees, dead from the recent attack of pine beetles, were as fetching as any contrived Christmas decoration. This thought hadn’t come to me automatically. Perhaps it was blotted out by a sound from my subconscious, that of many people wailing and moaning about the loss of the pine forest. Those who see a few dead trees as a dead forest are not able to see the trees for what they are, visually stunning. It seemed right that this sight could be seen as beautiful because, optically, orange and green compliment each other. The needles on the limbs of Pinus Contorta, the lodgepole pine, by their all-round-the-limb growth contribute to the sense that one is looking at heaps of wreaths before they’re rolled into the familiar hoops. No need to decorate the forests with gaudy light and tinsel, this show was compliments of a living forest going through a cycle old as the climate in which it grows. It dawned on me that we should enjoy this temporary visual feast while it lasts. Probably within a year the red needles will fall and a rather nondescript trunk and bare limbs will be all that’s left of the standing dead trees. I soon discovered that a particular group of standing dead trees, wearing their beautiful orange coats, was causing a harsh eye to be cast upon our town park. It seems there were some complaints concerning the dead trees. The town decided something had to be done. A ‘good’ logging plan was drawn up. My hair stood on end as I imagined what a ‘good’ logging plan meant to a park that I happen to find incredibly beautiful, an area that is enjoyed by locals and tourists. Often when I am a bit out of sorts, with too many man-made concerns, a stroll alongside the creek path through the park served as a mental shower, and I often emerged at the top of the trail feeling refreshed and clean of mind. Would I still find this same relaxation if a ‘good’ logging plan was carried out? As usual the rush to extract every dead tree mystifies me. Luckily though, I was invited to join several people, and tour the park with some of those involved in deciding how to handle the dead tree problem. As we moved through the southern, upper part of the park we heard a Ministry of the Environment representative explain the nature of a pine beetle outbreak. The first thing he noted was that pine beetle attacks were a normal part of forest activity. He pointed out various aspects of beetle attack such as ‘pitching out,’ a defense mechanism the tree employs in an attempt to drown the beetle. We studied various trees, some that might yet live, and some others that had already succumbed. As we talked, people began to express a common sentiment that dealing with beetle kill in a park should be handled in a totally different manner than a logging show on crown land or private property. A park needed special treatment. Typical logging practices are not sensitive to collateral destruction. If a machine goes 100 feet into the bush to extract one felled tree, the swath it leaves behind can be very destructive to smaller trees and even some larger trees. We were told that if a logging company suggests there are 6 loads of logs to be harvested (I detest that word) 4 loads would consist of the felled trees, and the other 2 loads would be trees that were not intended targets, just innocent bystanders. Another interesting statistic we heard was that birds, particularly Woodpeckers, are very effective in quelling some of the beetle attack, taking 60% of the beetle larvae. In response to the beetle attack, the populations of birds benefited from this food source rise substantially. It is another case of nature working quietly with its checks and balances. I pointed out that the park often contained Three-toed Woodpeckers, just one of over half a dozen Woodpecker species that benefited from the beetle attack and a bird of interest to visiting birders. The event that made me bring this up was a visit by a British birder. Among the birds he was specifically seeking was the Northern Three-toed Woodpecker. When he foisted his list into my hand I exclaimed that seeing a Northern Three-toed would be no problem. I made this bold statement because, earlier in the spring, while walking on property east of the park, I beheld no less than 3 Three-toed Woodpeckers all at the same time. This woodpecker population explosion most likely took place because of the number of beetle-killed Pine trees. Up until that year I claimed that Three-toed Woodpeckers fed only on Spruce trees. These three woodpeckers were all on beetle-infected Pine trees. What I forgot, as I led the keen birder to the area where I had previously seen many Three-toeds, was that logging had been carried out on the same property. Try as I might, I could not provide a sighting of a bird that only a few months before had been plentiful. The only thing changed was that all the pines had been removed, along with numerous other trees. The British birder left town and later wrote to tell me that he got his Three-toed Woodpecker sighting in Jasper. We finished our tour of the park and discussed the logging to be done. I came away with the sense that sane heads might prevail when it came to dealing with the dead trees. Only those trees that might fall onto well-used trails would be taken out and their removal would be done with as little disturbance as possible. I admit I am not totally convinced that this consensus of feeling will be the guiding principle when the logging action begins. Because I have come to realize the power a few bucks from a few loads of logs can have. Red trees seem to have the same effect on people as red capes have on bulls. To e-mail Tom CLICK HERE To look at previous column CLICK HERE |
