The slow fade of Colorado’s mountain pine beetle is triggering a massive shift in the timber industry – By Jason Blevins (Colorado Sun) / May 31 2021
Loggers and sawmills prepare for a downturn in supply of beetle-kill timber 15 years after a surge of pests began their devastating march through 3.3 million acres of Colorado forests.
Colorado’s forests have been waging a losing battle against tree-killing beetles for more than 15 years. Now, after marching across the state and killing millions of acres of pine forest, the burrowing, fungus-spreading mountain pine beetles are slowly losing steam.
While other beetles have thrived in Colorado’s drought-ravaged mountains, the mountain pine beetles have reigned as the state’s most nefarious pest. But the mountain pine beetle epidemic was always going to end, as there are only so many ponderosa and lodgepole trees in the 3.3 million acres affected by the tree-killing insects in Colorado.
And with that decline, a timber industry that has thrived on a once seemingly endless flow of dead pine trees is transitioning to new types of timber and logging.
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