Interesting Study on Elk and Beetle Kill Avoidance

[LCH]

I killed my cow last season in a nasty mess of blowdown in SE Wyoming. It was tough going through there, like a maze. There was no getting around climbing over 3-4' piles of dead trees, and every now and then you would just come to a 8' wall and have to backtrack 50 yards to find another way through.

The thing is, the entire area was completely tore up with elk sign, wallows, tracks, fresh droppings. The lower lying logs were skinned up from being struck by hooves.

I can't imagine why an elk would enjoy spending time in there, other than the sanctuary it provides. It flat out sucks trying to get through that stuff. My guess is that the elk probably spend more time in open country over the summer, then retreat to that nasty mess in response to hunting pressure. Fighting through dead trees every step is preferable to being dead.

 

[RobG]

I recently made some maps regarding this very subject, but I can no longer attach images so I will reference this web map created by the USFS Forest Health Team. It's from 2012. Click on the 2012 National Insect and Disease Risk Map layer to expand the sub layers.

https://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?layers=2022e3f664894959bddb6cb73eafb24b

I don't think folks realize the absolute scale of what the beetles did 10 years ago. The scope is incredible when you walk upon it. In the area southwest of Helena where I live and wander, there are chunks of forest tens of thousands of acres in size with greater than 50% tree cover loss, much of which is closer to 90%. And these are contiguous chunks. It really is incredible along the continental divide south of Helena. Once those trees began to fall in their majority, certain chunks of ground are functionally impenetrable. Taking a wrong path in that stuff with a few miles to go to the truck can be humbling - like an a$$ whooping.

I think the observations in this study will become even more prescient as time progresses. Half the lodgepole that succumbed to the beetles a decade ago is still standing. In the first few years following the die-off most still stood, and so you could still walk and hunt in it. In the last few years, and following a large windstorm in 2017, in the Boulder Mountains anyway there are numerous chunks of public ground, many square miles in size, that are impassible to both man and elk. Of course there are paths and areas thin enough to provide as corridors for movement, but there are massive chunks of ground where nothing but squirrels, rabbits, and bobcats wander. One need only suffer their way into 10 square miles of this blowdown mess, weeks after a snow, to realize there are no ungulate tracks and mountains that once held elk are now devoid of them.

I would be curious to see how elk use the beetle kill during hunting season, when those focused areas that provide easy living are hammered by people. I have a hunch that elk have very specific places they go in the beetle kill for sanctuary, but most of it is no good to them. What the area I like to play in needs is a cleansing fire, about 300,000 acres in size. Rereading what I just wrote, I'm aware I may be looking at it from the perspective of a hunter and not from a "whole-ecosystem" standpoint. I often find myself in awe of the beetle-kill.

Deadfall in most wildfire areas is just as bad.

 

[Nameless Range]

Deadfall in most wildfire areas is just as bad.

I agree, but now that most of the timber is down I think it would clean things up.

One difference, and why this stuff is something else, where wildfire typically burns in a mosaic, in much of this country the beetle-kill is largely contiguous in large blocks.

I don’t really know though, I’d be interested to see what a big fire would do to this stuff.

 

[Sytes]

A couple years off though Montana State received a 1mil grant for the study of...
It should be interesting to read.

MSU faculty awarded $1 million grant to research tree chemistry in bark beetle battle

The National Science Foundation grant will allow MSU assistant professor Amy Trowbridge to research the physiological and chemical response of pine trees in drought conditions.

www.montana.edu

Another, Diana Six, with University of Montana, has been studying bark beetle's as well. A good overview of her research can be found here: https://e360.yale.edu/features/how_science_can_help_to_halt_the_western_bark_beetle_plague

A video found while reading this and that... It's amazing how www has brought knowledge based reading to one's phone! I recall library catalog cards and the constant Britannica editions. Anyhow, for those interested. Also, great to see Vimeo is now supported!