Hey, Bark Beetle, are you still out there? I have not heard much about you lately. It seems that the "buzz" over you and the havoc you have wreaked upon the forests of California have lost the people’s interest. Based on the number of people who have “Googled” you recently, your influence appears to be waning (see graph below of Google “searches” for “bark beetle”).
Only a few years ago, Californians drowned in headlines about the devastation you brought upon the trees of the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada. It now appears you are the one drowning in the moisture from the multiple winter storms and atmospheric rivers that have ladened the Sierra with a record snowpack, including in the Central region where Yosemite National Park lies.
Your day in the sun appears to have passed, and, when I say day in the sun, I am not kidding! The Sierra Nevada Mountain range has had plenty of days in the sun over the past ten years, especially between the years 2012 and 2016 when warming climate and drought squeezed the moisture out of the most widely distributed pine species in North America, the pinus ponderosa, (i.e., ponderosa pine or western yellow pine). Consequently, you and your offspring gorged yourself on those vulnerable trees that could no longer prevent you from boring into their bark.
According to one government report, climate warming also benefited you and your mating rituals by allowing “extra generations to complete their life cycles each year, and adult beetle emergence and flight could occur in the season and continue further into the fall.” Additionally, normal cold-induced mortality during the winter also decreased due to warmer temperatures. So, you and your hordes “partied hardy” way past your curfew, critically weakening and bringing mortality to over one hundred million trees on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada according to a US Department of Agriculture report.
Still, all of that dried timber put you and your kin at risk. I tried to warn you and your buddies back in 2016, but you failed to listen to me. Your assault on the forest continued like churning maggots devouring the flesh of a dead animal. You greedily swarmed the weakened and vulnerable pines, entering the outer bark as if freely entering the gates of Babylon that were left wide open while Nebuchadnezzar also partied senselessly! With no sap to keep you out, the trees succumbed to your burrowing offspring which ate up the softer portions of the tree. Additionally, you and your progeny infected the conifers with a bluish fungus, dispossessing them of any timber value.
Let me repeat my warning from November and December 2016. I stated that your hordes “may only have a limited time left to reign over the forests” of California and that your ”rapid propagation and feasting is creating a doomsday cycle that imperils [your] own dramatic population increases.” If you add in the complicating threat of great wildfires that have combined with tree mortality and the drought, then, eventually, you will run out of distressed trees. This will cause your numbers, at best, to “regress to the mean.” I added that “although . . . pine beetle die-off may not actually make the media headlines . . . it will be newsworthy to every remaining ponderosa pine and every ponderosa pine to be.” Maybe now my statement “’Beetlemania’ will be a thing of the past!” has a little more meaning to you!
Yes, I stated specifically that you would eat yourself out of existence! But, again, you failed to listen to me. I reminded you that “droughts come and go and the forests of California [would] be nourished with blessed waters again. Normal precipitation patterns will grace the Sierra Nevada region, and the ponderosa pine will begin its comeback.” Welcome to the year 2023 and the new reality, Bark Beetle! More than normal precipitation has returned to the Sierras, much more!
The massive May 1 snow totals for this winter indicate that the Sierra snowpack compares to only a “handful of years” from the historical record, according to Sean de Guzman, a manager for the California Department of Water Resources. As of May 1, the overall snowpack at Phillips Station stood at “59 inches of snow depth and a snow water equivalent of 30 inches, which is 241 percent of average for this location on May 1.”
At the Tuolumne River basin in Yosemite, the snowpack came in at 253% of average on May 1, while the Merced River Basin averaged 231% of average for that date!
It’s time to face it, Bark Beetle, your day in the sun has indeed passed. Maybe now you will give ear to my warning and take my advice before you become an endangered species! You have done enough damage to the forests here in California. The US Department of Agriculture reports that 100 million trees have died from drought and your feasting. Can’t you see? There is no longer any place for you here, Bark Beetle. California’s young forests and remaining trees are rehydrating in a big way. The gates of their bark are reloading with their sticky pitch, preparing to stop any inroads you might make, and bring your Babylonian-style party to an end!
So, here’s my last piece of advice, Bark Beetle. Listen carefully! Have you heard of what exists in Alaska? Trees! Lots of trees! Almost 32 billion by one estimate! I suggest you buzz your way up to Alaska and begin gorging yourself upon its abundant forests! Oh, you say it’s cold there? Well, I heard it once got to 100 degrees at Fort Yukon back in 1915. Maybe you’ll find such pleasing weather during your emigration there. I read that the summer weather is delightful! And, on your way, you can always take in a viewing of the northern lights in Fairbanks. Did you know that they can be seen on an average of 243 days a year there?
They don’t call Alaska the “Great Land” for nothing, Bark Beetle. I recommend you vacate California pronto and indulge in Alaska’s all-you-can-eat buffet of 32 billion trees. Surely, you would agree that not only does a great opportunity exists there, but it's time for you and whoever's left with you to get a move on! Hurry, because your life may be endangered staying here in California! It’s definitely time you “take that [advice], Bark Beetle!”
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