'Natural'doesn't help feed cattle, wildlife

摘要

IT'S apparently natural for an ugly little beetle to periodically lay its eggs and feed its young in the bark of the majestic spruce; however, the extent of the beetles' latest attack on this defenseless evergreen is anything but what it should be. This according to a woman who has helped restore spruce and other forests all across the Northwest. Diane Cote is a silviculturist with the U.S. Forest Service who says the unnatural onslaught of the spruce beetle in many U.S. and Canadian forests happensevery 100 years or so when nature for some reason gets out of whack. For example, the genesis of today's problem in Utah's Manti-LaSal National Forest began in the early 1980s when a small beetle infestation the Forest Service was hoping to control exploded after a landslide severed road access to the area being treated.