CRATER LAKE Report: Battle Against Bark Beetles

Figure 5—Evolution of mountain pine beetle infestations from 1924 to 1929 in Crater Lake National Park. Beetles migrating from the first established center in the northern part of the park invaded the southern areas, thereby causing great losses in these recreational stands. Control work during 1925 to 1932 was directed against infestations in all the southern forests. Areas where control was carried out in 1947 are shown encircled southeast of Crater Lake. (click on image for a larger size)

In February 1926, Park Superintendent Thomson wrote a disturbing letter to Patterson. The letter acknowledged the recommendation for $2,000 needed for spring 1926 control work but said that the funds could not be released until after July 1, 1926 (the new fiscal year). The letter ended, "...if it should be too late then to undertake effective control measures, the money will be available for use the following spring (1927) when insect infestations can be treated in time." [10] Patterson replied immediately that he was perplexed over this delay in allotting funds that he thought were arranged. He saw much good work of 1925 going for naught if the remaining infestations could not be cleaned out in spring 1926 before beetles emerged from infested trees. In the meantime F.C. Craighead, Chief of Forest Insect Investigations, Bureau of Entomology, Washington, DC, started lobbying the top echelons of the Federal bureaucracy. He came up with $1,600 that was intended for Grand Canyon National Park (see footnote 10). This, combined with $400 left over from other work at Crater Lake, was enough to proceed as planned. New problems arose, however, once the control work started. Instead of several hundred infested trees as estimated in 1925, there were several thousand. This necessitated control work into August and September at Anna Creek and Munson Valley (see footnote 10). This was not good news because it meant treating well into the period when beetles were in flight and making new attacks. Spotters could miss many new attacks. The only good news was that the Park Service allotted $8,000 to Crater Lake for fiscal year 1927, minus the $1,600 hijacked from Grand Canyon. But, in the fall when Patterson and Thomson tried to find out exactly how much they had remaining to use in their spring 1927 work, they found the dollars had been slipping away to other parks -- Yellowstone for one (see footnote 10). The year-end report by Patterson showed 6,805 trees treated (43 were ponderosa pine infested with western pine beetle) at a cost of $9,645.16. [11] He claimed a reduction of 86 percent in the number of infested trees on all the old units worked in 1925, but new infestations kept cropping up in fall 1926. An area around Crater Peak had 2,500 newly infested trees, and an area east of the entrance in the Crater National Forest continued to be a trouble spot. Patterson claimed that they continued as a source of new infestation for the lodgepole pine stands in the park. Patterson further surmised that the newly infested area at Crater Peak and the trees found in Munson Valley resulted from beetle infestations north of the lake. He felt that this source would no longer be troublesome because most of the trees in that area were dead by 1926 (see footnote 11). He optimistically requested only $2,500 to $3,000 for control work in 1927. Patterson was concerned about the reinvasion of areas in 1926, but after examining the old infestations north of the lake he was convinced (see footnote 11)

...that the progress or "drift" of the annual infestations had been consistently in a south-westerly direction. This fact was further supported by examination made in the new infested lodgepole stands in the west-central part of the Park. These stands have only recently been invaded and the drift of the beetles infesting them has also been toward the southwest. This is shown by the fact that the first trees attacked are on the northeast exposure of the infested areas.

The discovery of this drift in the Crater Lake Park was of significance, because the control areas and the lodgepole pine stands in the west-central part just described, are in its path. Further evidence supporting this suspected cause of the re-infestation was the fact that the last trees attacked in the old areas north-east of the lake are located on their southwestern border and that these places represent the last stand of the beetles in this locality. These old areas were abandoned in 1926, because all the lodgepole in them had been killed. The flight of 1926 represented the last remnant of their beetle population and this remnant was forced to migrate to living stands of lodgepole. One of the last epidemic centers in these old areas abandoned by the beetles in 1926 is located on the rim or the lake near Round Top, (see map). This point is directly north-east of the Munson Valley region where the greatest re-infestation of the control areas occurred in 1926. This re-infestation is believed to have been caused by an invasion of beetles migrating from these old epidemic centers.

Another factor which probably contributed to this movement of beetles into Munson Valley was the burning day and night, during the flight period of 1925, of slash along the new rim road which was under construction from Government Camp to the Lodge at the north end of Munson Valley. It is well known that the mountain pine beetle is readily attracted to burning slash. The map shows the relative location of all the infested areas above discussed. The red arrows are drawn on the map to show the direction of the migration of the beetles. Control areas F, H, and 1, are the only areas in direct line with this suspected drift. It seems the above evidence is sufficiently conclusive to warrant The statement that the 1926 re-infestation of the control areas F, H, and I, was caused by beetles migrating from the old-standing infestations north-east of the lake.

That there is no great hazard of such migration and consequent reinfestation of the areas south of the lake again occurring seems assured because there are not enough beetles now remaining in these old areas to make it possible. The 1925 flight represented practically the total beetle population of the region north-east of the lake.

Figure 6—Lost Creek Forest Service control camp, June 2, 1929. Left to Right: Alex Jaenicke, Forest Service entomologist; Wm. Godfrey, Park Service Chief Ranger; and Lee Brown, Assistant Forest Supervisor.

Another budget crisis occurred in October 1926. A letter from Acting National Park Service Director Arno Cammerer to Superintendent Thomson on October 12, 1926, indicates a battle of the budgets as well as the bugs. Cammerer acknowledges a request from J.E. Patterson for an allotment of at least $2,500 to carry on a beetle project in the park in 1927 but states that there was only $500 held in reserve for 1927, and it was promised to Glacier National Park. He further said that the Park Service had requested $15,000 for insect control work in 1928, but this had been cut by the Bureau of the Budget to $7,500 and, because he understood from correspondence that the control work in Crater Lake had been "pretty well completed," they allotted only $500 to Crater Lake. He concluded by saying, "I see no possibility of providing you with additional funds as requested for work next spring." [12]

Patterson did not protest and probably assumed that Craighead in Washington, DC, would come through again and prevent Yellowstone from gaining all the funding.

My correspondence files are empty, unfortunately, for 1927 and 1928 so I do not know how the funding was arranged. But a control project was conducted in 1927: 2,936 lodgepole pine trees were treated at a cost of $2,500. The most remarkable thing was that the outbreak was apparently whipped, or at least stalled, because no control work was recommended for 1928. [13]

One interesting innovation occurred in the annals of beetle control work in 1927. Because of deep snow at Anna Creek, men and camps were transported success fully by tractors towing sleds. Also in 1927, the adjacent Crater National Forest treated 4,000 trees on the east edge of the park in a show of cooperation; Patterson felt there was little threat from that source in the future (see footnote 13). He did recommend that the Forest Service clean up some small infestations near Sand Creek in 1928. There was one disquieting note in the 1927 report:

Following the control work of 1927 only 545 infested trees have developed on the control areas. These trees represent the total beetle infestation at the present time. The future infestation on the control areas will depend upon the development of these 545 broods. It is not probable that they can soon increase to a point that will again menace the present stands (see footnote 13).

This seems like a risky statement given the history of the outbreak to this time.

Figure 7—Crater Lake National Park Superintendent E.C. Solinsky (left) in front of Anna Springs cabin.

In 1928, the Crater National Forest under Administrative Assistant Lee Brown carried out control operations on Sand Creek and north of Sand Creek between Cave Creek and the National Park boundary. [14] Apparently, neither Patterson nor anyone else from the Bureau of Entomology trained the Forest Service staff or worked with them. According to Brown's report, the crew was trained by Forest Examiner A.J. Jaenicke who was in charge of forest insect work in the Pacific Northwest Region. Bureau of Entomology personnel were probably not involved because of the press of business in the park. Brown complained about the lack of experience of the spotters used to locate infested trees (see footnote 14). The trees were treated by the sun-curing or solar heat method advocated by Patterson, so he must have had some exchange with the Forest Service, perhaps in 1927. The Forest Service crews treated 1,257 trees at a cost of $1,000. They unfortunately ran out of funds before they completed the work. A few small groups of trees were not treated south of Sand Creek Canyon; and about 200 trees were not rolled during the solar treating, which meant that about two-thirds of the beetle brood survived and emerged. The result was that Brown recommended cleaning up the areas worked in 1927 and 1928 and estimated this would cost $1,500 in 1929 (see footnote 14).

Patterson made a fall survey in 1928 and said "...there had been a considerable infiltration of beetles from north of the Lake, as well as a build-up of the infestation locally during the year when no work was done." [15] So the battle was not over quite yet.