Beetle Busters mobilize to fight pine beetle

By Cherry Sokoloski
North Forty News

Wes Rutt of the Larimer County Tree Farmers doesn't give up easily. Now, with the mountain pine beetle ravaging Colorado forests, he encourages others to persevere, too.

In particular, Rutt wants people with forested land to keep fighting the deadly pine beetle. This summer and fall, he and fellow tree farmers are mounting a major campaign to teach more people how to treat affected trees on their property, so they can help slow the mountain pine beetle's advance.

"We have no illusions about stopping this epidemic," Rutt commented, "but we want to slow it down and mitigate fire danger."

The Larimer County Tree Farmers have partnered with the Larimer County Department of Natural Resources, the Colorado Forestry Association and the Fort Collins District of the Colorado State Forest Service to battle the beetles on private land. They have formed a new volunteer group, the Larimer County Beetle Busters, to lead the charge. Rutt has persuaded all three county commissioners and all five state legislators from Larimer County to become Beetle Busters themselves.

Millions of federal dollars are flowing into Colorado to help manage the beetle epidemic in federal forests, but very little is available to help private landowners. Rutt sees the new volunteer corps as the best answer to this dilemma. He encourages all environmentally minded citizens, rural and urban, to get involved.

Several smaller communities in the county already have active Beetle Busters groups, but to date there has been no countywide effort to slow the beetles' march through private forests. With the new, larger group, the partners are using a proven concept and scaling it up.

The Beetle Busters will not cut down trees or chip them, but they will help landowners get started with mitigation efforts. Many landowners, Rutt noted, feel overwhelmed by the pine beetle problem. He wants to show them how to do something productive, rather than throwing up their hands in despair.

A major fire would impact everyone, Rutt stressed.

"A huge wildfire will affect air and water quality and may disrupt electrical transmission for some time," he said. "If these disasters occur here, we may all wish that we had done more to reduce the impact. We can't wait around for the crisis all the time."

Privately owned forest properties, versus federal lands, are in closer proximity to Larimer County's urban areas, so the impact on citizens from a fire on private lands would be significant. However, mitigation is possible.

"The lower the fuel loads in your forest, the smaller and less intense the next wildfire is likely to become," Rutt said.

Volunteering

A Beetle Busters training workshop is planned for Sept. 25, and anyone interested in helping to slow the pine beetle epidemic is welcome to participate. At the workshop, experts will train crews of volunteers, who will then make personal visits to private landowners.

Beetle Busters will help to identify and flag beetle-infested trees, answer questions and provide the most up-to-date, practical information on removal and treatment of infested trees.

They will also provide lists of private contractors who can do the necessary labor. Even more importantly, Rutt said, volunteers will inspire and encourage private landowners to continue their mitigation efforts, even if the beetle appears to be winning.

"The beetle may be able to kill some of your trees, but wildfire can do much more damage," he said.

"Many people on the Gulf Coast are organizing their communities in such volunteer efforts now," Rutt pointed out. "You have the opportunity to make a difference here. Don't be one of those people who will be arguing that 'someone should have done something.' You can do something right now."

Not hopeless

The situation is far from hopeless, Rutt said. "Forests along the Front Range have a much more diverse population of tree species and age groups than those on the Western Slope," he noted. "Therefore, there is a much better chance that we can slow the spread of the beetle here than was possible on the Western Slope."

Beetles have now spread from lodgepole pine to ponderosa pine, the dominant species in much of Larimer County. According to the Colorado State Forest Service, ground zero for the state's pine beetle outbreak now appears to be in Larimer County.

Beetles are due to fly again from ponderosas in late July, infesting more trees in the county. The September workshop will arm citizens with information needed to treat these trees before next year's flight. Each treated tree can save four or more healthy trees from becoming infested next year.

The volunteer training workshop is set for Sept. 25, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., at Ward Mountain Ranch on Stove Prairie Road. For further information about the workshop, contact Rutt at 482-6912 or stumpmaker@gmail.com. To register for the workshop, go to www.co.larimer.co.us/nrvolunteer/. Click on the "Apply to be a Volunteer" link. Under "Volunteer Opportunities You Are Interested In," check "other" and write in "Beetle Buster."