Beetle kill, fires and fungus have greatly reduced the high altitude pine-
Anyone following this forum for a while knows the story of the plight of the whitebark pine. Now the Natural Resource Defense Council has sued to put in on the endangered species list.
Group sues over whitebark pine endangered petition. By Mead Gruver. Associated Press Writer
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides, and he is past President of the Western Watersheds Project and the creator of The Wildlife News.
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I wonder if this Administration made a strategic error in not naming more folks from the environmental advocacy groups, although there are a few NRDC alums….DC is a place with a long memory of slights…
There are plenty of White Bark Pine trees that come up every year in the Clearwater/Lolo NF from the left over cashes of the Clark’s Nutcracker near the Idaho Montana border from Lolo down to Lowell. I have been up there doing video work on a science project a USFS employee is doing on the paterns of areas where the Nutcracker stashed the White Barked Pine tree nuts. They come up in clumps of 20-50 that he forgets where he cashed them. Possible those trees could be used as seed stock and for transplants in places where the bugs and fires have killed them. Thin bark and hot fires will kill even the old White Barked Pine trees. Elayne Murphy the PIO at Orofino or Cindy Lane there should be able to help. RAC funds could fund both recovery and planting. There are plenty to go a long way in re-forestation projects.
ResourseUser