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Not having read it, was this in wolf country?
Any results on this Elkhorn beetle kill study yet?
https://missoulian.com/news/state-a...cle_324ea078-e145-574e-9b45-213f6d60e693.html
impassible to both man and elk.
Odd, I see elk in beetle kill quite a bit...
Dry cold sites like the mountain west where lodgepole pine thrive, dead downed timber can take hundreds of years to decompose. Fires, if not too intense are the best way to release the dead trees nutrients into the soil. Woody biomass however has little reletive nutrient value. Nitrogen is the most important nutrient necessary to produce lush green growth. Nitrogen fixing plants like alder, lupine and ceanothus that take over after a fire, do a lot to increase the nitrogen levels in the soil.
I recently made some maps regarding this very subject, but I can no longer attach images so I will reference this web map created by the USFS Forest Health Team. It's from 2012. Click on the 2012 National Insect and Disease Risk Map layer to expand the sub layers.
https://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?layers=2022e3f664894959bddb6cb73eafb24b
I don't think folks realize the absolute scale of what the beetles did 10 years ago. The scope is incredible when you walk upon it. In the area southwest of Helena where I live and wander, there are chunks of forest tens of thousands of acres in size with greater than 50% tree cover loss, much of which is closer to 90%. And these are contiguous chunks. It really is incredible along the continental divide south of Helena. Once those trees began to fall in their majority, certain chunks of ground are functionally impenetrable. Taking a wrong path in that stuff with a few miles to go to the truck can be humbling - like an a$$ whooping.
I think the observations in this study will become even more prescient as time progresses. Half the lodgepole that succumbed to the beetles a decade ago is still standing. In the first few years following the die-off most still stood, and so you could still walk and hunt in it. In the last few years, and following a large windstorm in 2017, in the Boulder Mountains anyway there are numerous chunks of public ground, many square miles in size, that are impassible to both man and elk. Of course there are paths and areas thin enough to provide as corridors for movement, but there are massive chunks of ground where nothing but squirrels, rabbits, and bobcats wander. One need only suffer their way into 10 square miles of this blowdown mess, weeks after a snow, to realize there are no ungulate tracks and mountains that once held elk are now devoid of them.
I would be curious to see how elk use the beetle kill during hunting season, when those focused areas that provide easy living are hammered by people. I have a hunch that elk have very specific places they go in the beetle kill for sanctuary, but most of it is no good to them. What the area I like to play in needs is a cleansing fire, about 300,000 acres in size. Rereading what I just wrote, I'm aware I may be looking at it from the perspective of a hunter and not from a "whole-ecosystem" standpoint. I often find myself in awe of the beetle-kill.
I recently made some maps regarding this very subject, but I can no longer attach images so I will reference this web map created by the USFS Forest Health Team. It's from 2012. Click on the 2012 National Insect and Disease Risk Map layer to expand the sub layers.
https://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?layers=2022e3f664894959bddb6cb73eafb24b
I don't think folks realize the absolute scale of what the beetles did 10 years ago. The scope is incredible when you walk upon it. In the area southwest of Helena where I live and wander, there are chunks of forest tens of thousands of acres in size with greater than 50% tree cover loss, much of which is closer to 90%. And these are contiguous chunks. It really is incredible along the continental divide south of Helena. Once those trees began to fall in their majority, certain chunks of ground are functionally impenetrable. Taking a wrong path in that stuff with a few miles to go to the truck can be humbling - like an a$$ whooping.
I think the observations in this study will become even more prescient as time progresses. Half the lodgepole that succumbed to the beetles a decade ago is still standing. In the first few years following the die-off most still stood, and so you could still walk and hunt in it. In the last few years, and following a large windstorm in 2017, in the Boulder Mountains anyway there are numerous chunks of public ground, many square miles in size, that are impassible to both man and elk. Of course there are paths and areas thin enough to provide as corridors for movement, but there are massive chunks of ground where nothing but squirrels, rabbits, and bobcats wander. One need only suffer their way into 10 square miles of this blowdown mess, weeks after a snow, to realize there are no ungulate tracks and mountains that once held elk are now devoid of them.
I would be curious to see how elk use the beetle kill during hunting season, when those focused areas that provide easy living are hammered by people. I have a hunch that elk have very specific places they go in the beetle kill for sanctuary, but most of it is no good to them. What the area I like to play in needs is a cleansing fire, about 300,000 acres in size. Rereading what I just wrote, I'm aware I may be looking at it from the perspective of a hunter and not from a "whole-ecosystem" standpoint. I often find myself in awe of the beetle-kill.