Another wave of bugs?

"In my lifetime as a silviculturist, the stuff I'm doing now, I will not see that stand in my lifetime."

While many people might have a five-year-plan or a 10-year-plan, Joshua Peck has to have a 100-year-plan. That's because Peck works at the Brush Creek/Hayden Ranger District for the US Forest Service (USFS) as its silviculturist. To put it plainly, his job is timber management.

"I really like to see management happen and I like to see healthy forests. I enjoy being out in the woods on my personal time and it's important to me to continue that value," said Peck.

Peck has lived in the Valley for nearly four years, having worked for the forest service in the Black Hills National Forest in South Dakota before coming to Saratoga. Timber management hadn't always been on his radar, however. Originally going to college for business he was offered an opportunity to work for the forest service over a summer.

"I got into it that summer and loved it," Peck said, "and then went back to school and kind of hated business school."

After his second summer of working for the forest service, Peck transferred and switched majors. Now, as a silviculturist, Peck's job is to help plan the future for the Medicine Bow National Forest. Part of this job means having knowledge in other specialties within the forest service. Having a cursory knowledge in hydrology and water cycles as well as knowing what types of soils will benefit trees all goes into the planning for the forests.

Trying to plan for the entirety of the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest can seem daunting, especially when the Landscape Vegetative Analysis (LaVA) project is slated to address over 300,000 acres. This is why, instead of thinking on the forest level, Peck thinks on the stand level.

"Our management is by that stand level, but we're also thinking of how each of those stands fits in the forest as a whole," said Peck.

Stands are homogenous zones of the forest, areas that have similar age, species or structure. A forest, in turn, is a collection of stands. A silviculturist doesn't manage the forest, but rather the stands that make up the forest. With LaVA, part of that management is addressing the dead timber found throughout the forest.

According to Peck, the dead timber doesn't pose a threat to living timber on the stand level. Quite the opposite, in fact, as it often provides shelter for the living trees from the wind. It also means less competition for resources.

"The reason we are focused on the management of those is, we can take those dead trees and get a value out of them by taking them to the mill and kick off that area or that stand on to its next cycle of growth," said Peck.

An important focus of LaVA is the management of the lodgepole pine, the species of tree that had been ravaged by the pine beetle epidemic. In managing the lodgepole, it is important to remove the dead timber because of the type of cones that the tree uses to reproduce. Lodgepole pines have what are called "seratinous cones." Unlike other types of cones, which open up at a certain time, seratinous cones have to be exposed to heat in the form of sunlight or fire before they can open.

"Some of those trees that have been dead for seven, eight, nine, 10 years - those cones are still sitting up on those branches closed and the seed is still viable. It just takes putting it on the ground and the heat from the sunlight hitting them," Peck said.

The viability of the lodgepole pine seeds, however, is beginning to decline. As the viability of the seed declines, so do the chances of stand initiation. With some of the lodgepole pine, the forest service is seeing what is called "mixed sorotiny" where some of the cones have already opened up and released their seeds. Peck said it adds another level of "management complexity" that the forest service has to deal with.

Another part of managing the lodgepole pine is keeping the number of homogeneous zones low.

"The scope and the magnitude of this (beetle epidemic) was unprecedented and it was simply because of what we did or didn't do in the past that there was more of this homogenous lodgepole landscape for the beetle to chew up," said Peck.

The pine beetle and bark beetle epidemics have passed, and while they may be affecting trees on a stand-by-stand basis, they do not pose as large of a threat as they did during the years they ravaged the forest. That does not, however, mean that our forests are clear of any danger.

The western spruce budworm, spruce beetle and the western balsam bark beetle are three examples of insect infestations that are currently posing a major threat to the Medicine Bow National Forest. The spruce budworm, as its name implies, is found mainly on varying species of spruce trees where it consumes the needles of the tree leaving the branch bare.

A pamphlet released by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in 1982 states "The western spruce budworm is the most widely distributed and destructive defoliator of coniferous forests in Western North America."

The western balsam bark beetle poses a threat to fir trees which, along with spruce, are found throughout the Medicine Bow National Forest.

"If you drive up (Highway) 130 you're starting to see a lot of red down in the drainages," said Peck. "That's the firs dying from the western balsam beetle."

Peck added that, while our forests are always in danger of something, LaVA has the capability to allow the forest service to react quicker to threats from insects and diseases. It also allows for more agencies to sit at the table and provide information that is helpful for making decisions in the management of the forest.

"We, as a forest service, need to do a better job of having people who are curious and people who it directly affects sitting at the table with us and helping us make better decisions," Peck said. "That's something we're still learning. The LaVA project is definitely tiering down that path because we have a lot of other people sitting at the table with us and it's been very interesting."

Those who have been offered a seat at the table with LaVA include the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD), the Wyoming State Forestry Division (WSFD), several conservation districts as well as the public and the timber industry.

According to Peck, the timber industry is another tool of forest management that wasn't always utilized as well as it could have been. It was due to the decline in the timber industry, in part, that the beetle epidemic was as bad as it was.

"We need to have a learning culture and utilize those people that are very knowledgeable about this stuff and help us make better decisions," said Peck.

Peck added that LaVA is a different way of doing business and that, because of it, the forest service is asking for a lot of trust.

"It's going to allow us to adapt to changing conditions better. It's going to allow us to work with cooperating agencies better and look at things on a bigger scale where we can work across BLM, state and forest service boundaries."