SPECIES SUCCESS, SPECIES AS PREY AND PINE BEETLES

I was reading the Denver Post this afternoon and came upon two stories that shared a common link to global warming. One of the stories sounded the alarm of pine beetle devastation of Colorado’s mountain forests. The other story told of the pika (Order Lagomorpha) becoming scarce in the mountains. Both stories alluded to global warming and man’s interference with nature. I worked in Grand Teton National Park in the early 70’s. We would only see pika in the higher, rocky canyons and slag piles of glacier debris. The article seems to indicate that pika are common in all parts of the forest. The article also describes pika as rodents. They are not rodents; they are members of the order Lagmorpha, the family to which rabbits belong. The pine beetle story said Colorado would loose 1.5 million acres of forest land to the beetle infestation which began in 1996. In the 70’s Colorado and other mountain states experienced pine beetle infestations of mountain forests. The solution then was to fell the infected trees. Forest service employees scoured the mountain sides and sprayed blue markings on the trees to be felled. Cutting permits were sold to the public to allow cutting of the marked trees. Private concerns and individuals thinned the forests and hauled to wood off to their fireplaces and woodstoves. Today such cutting is not allowed because of environmental policies put in place to prohibit sane management of the forests. The beetle infested forests are now tinder boxes waiting to explode into a summer firestorm of a record forest fire season in 2008. Its not global warming that is destroying the forests.
The environmental land grab scam is to blame for forest destruction throughout the West. I have to ask the wolf release advocates what the definition of critical habitat is, considering the condition of forests in the American Southwest. Is critical habitat the herds of cattle owned by ranchers or the pristine forests protected by environmental policy? If those forests burn; where will the wolves go? As for the pika; did anyone consider that the comeback of eagles in the West might have something to do with a reduction of the pika population? If the connection can be made between predator and prey, as so eloquently justified by wolf release advocates, then we either blame global warming on eagles or just assume pikas are easy prey for raptors.

http://www.denverpost.com/commented/ci_7967666?source=commented-