GRIZZLY
FUTURE
not a competitor.”
Logan began looking at the impact rising temperatures might
have on whitebark pines back in
the late 1990s, when he was still
with the Forest Service. “Before
any of this started, we were saying
this could happen unbelievably
fast,” he said. “But I was thinking this is something maybe my
grandchildren will see, maybe my
children. I’m not going to see it.”
In 2003, however, his prediction started coming true.
Throughout the region, whitebark forests began showing signs
of infestation: first patches of
HUFFINGTON
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trees with yellowing needles, then
spots of red, dying trees. Within
a few years, some whitebark forests were a sea of red. By 2009,
according to Logan and Macfarlane, 95 percent of the whitebark
forests in the Yellowstone region
showed signs of infestation.
A deep cold snap that year beat
back the beetle population, however, at least temporarily. According to the federal government’s
scientists, the beetle problem
peaked then and has been on the
decline ever since. But Logan and
Macfarlane say the feds aren’t
seeing what they’re seeing.
Over the summer and early fall
of 2013, they partnered with the
environmental groups Union of
Wally Macfarlane
shows how
the beetles
have infested
a whitebark
pine tree on
Packsaddle Peak.