GRIZZLY
FUTURE
Now, however, about half of the
whitebark trees were starting to
show the early signs of infestation.
A red, sap-like substance dripped
from their bark like tears, the trees’
attempt to expel the beetles that
had burrowed inside them.
“It’s very discouraging,” Logan
said. He used a small hatchet to
hack off a section of bark from
one tree. Inside, the beetles had
carved narrow, J-shaped burrows
into the tree’s tissue. He plucked a
tiny, dark insect, no bigger than a
black bean, from the crevice.
Many of the trees still wore
greenish-yellow needles that, to
HUFFINGTON
02.23.14
an untrained eye, looked healthy
enough. But there were signs that
the beetles were already at work
inside. Logan calls these trees the
“standing dead.” Soon the needles
would turn a brilliant red, before
falling off and leaving behind a
grey, bare tree like the ones on
Packsaddle Peak. He predicted
that in the next two years, nearly
all of the trees on the Beartooth
Plateau would also be dead.
“I would not use the term ‘refuge’ standing here now,” said Logan. “We’re on the brink
of a catastrophic collapse.”
Kate Sheppard is a senior reporter and
the environment and energy editor at
the Huffington Post.
A mother
grizzly bear
and her three
cubs are
spotted in
Yellowstone
National Park.