Termite Inspection Orange County Termite Terry Pest Control

Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, South Orange County, Long Beach Area

Cutting Down Trees To Save The Forest

pine-treesA lot of our forests in California are sick and more than 60 million trees have died over the past five years. In order to try and save our forests, researchers from UC Berkeley are now cutting down trees.

The work will be done at the Sagehen Experimental Forest, located in the High Sierra near Truckee. This area is protected and designated for research.

Trees in the forests of the Sierras are sick because there are too many of them competing for too little water. Our drought has weakened many of these trees and left them easy prey for insects that will eventually cause them to die.

Cutting down trees is something that Jeff Brown, manager of the Sagehen Experimental Forest, thought he would never approve. His opinion has changed and he said, “Okay, so the prescription in here is any tree under 10 inches is gone.”

These forest thinning operations may become a model for the Western United States. Hand crews are now thinning some sections of the forest by taking out small trees and brush. By doing this, they hope that the big trees will have the resources they need to survive. They also believe that the thinned out areas will resemble what much of the Sierra used to look like.

“When you read the stories of people who came through here on wagon trains, they could drive wagons through the Sierra forest easily. If you look here now, you can’t do that,” said Brown.

Wildfires naturally occur and can be beneficial to our forests. But, because we have been putting out these fires for decades, the forests have become much denser than nature intended.

Other areas of the forest will be thinned using a large machine called a masticator. This machine essentially chews up smaller trees. It is faster and less expensive to use, however they are concerned that the results may be too extreme. Scientists are going to study the results and see how the eco-system responds over time.

Portions of the forest are going to be left alone to support wildlife. The researchers are very concerned about these forest thinning projects and want to know what effects they may have on various animals. The costs of this tree cutting and research project is estimated at nearly $700,000 and will be funded by the state and federal government.