kid chopping down live trees?

steveh27 wrote:

Duke-44 wrote:

steveh27 wrote:
Just this April I was in the Black Hills & found a number of recent trees cut down &into short lengths. When I left I spoke to a nearby landowner & he said they were trees infested with the pine beetle & had been cut to prevent them from spreading.

There are plenty of dead, pine beetle killed trees right next to these hacked to death, green needled trees. A live tree is much easier to chop than a dried dead tree.
I'm sticking with a kid, with a stupid parent as the culprit.

The trees I saw cut WERE live green trees. Once they turn brown the beetles have already left and they don't bother cutting them down. So it is the live green infested trees that are cut down and in short lengths to prevent the beetles from maturing and spreading. This is happening in many areas.

I worked in the NF in the late 1960's while a teenager for 3 summers on the beetle infestation and am very aware of the pine beetle infested trees. For years after, I would walk through the forest and would not see the beauty of the green non-infested trees because all I could focus on was the dying beetle infested trees. I know the difference from well over 150' away. But beetles do not attack younger trees like the ones cut by this hacker that cuts them only for pleasure.