CRATER LAKE Report: Battle Against Bark Beetles

Figure 9—Tractor dragging sleds loaded with control camp gear over snow to the treatment areas. Crater Lake National Park, May, 1929. (A) Smooth sailing. (B) even caterpillars get stuck, and (C) everybody off and push.

For the beetle battlers, 1929 was a very bad year. Thousands of lodgepole pine became infested in 1928 from what Patterson described as continued infiltration of beetles drifting from north of the lake, even though very few live trees were supposedly left in that area. Also in some areas, two broods developed thereby producing two sets of infested trees instead of the usual one (see footnote 15). Altogether, 23,239 trees were treated across 9,000 acres at a cost of $17,038.91. The Crater National Forest treated 8,199 trees at a cost of $2,000 (see footnote 15). The fall 1928 survey, according to Chief Ranger William C. Godfrey, actually estimated that only 4,500 trees would have to be treated in 1929. [16] This was a 75-percent under estimate when tallies were made at the end of the 1929 control work. Godfrey mentioned that the crews again faced snow depths of 6 feet or more when they tried to set up camps in late April. Again they resorted to tractors to drag camp equipment and crews to Anna Creek. The most disturbing part of Godfrey's report was that they had to leave 4,070 trees untreated (see footnote 16).

Brown was again in charge of Forest Service control work in 1929 and his report makes some interesting statements not included in other reports. [17] Brown thought the smoke from slash fires along the road attracted more beetles to the roadside area in 1929, and he mentioned that 1929 was unseasonably dry and favorable to the beetles. He was in charge of control operations in the park (upper Sand Creek) under J.E. Patterson. This is the first indication that Forest Service crews worked within park boundaries. Brown also made the first mention of possible beneficial effects of opening a stand during logging as follows (see footnote 17):

At Mr. Jaenicke's suggestion an examination was made of sale cuttings in the lodgepole pine in this area. An examination of 70 acres cut over by the Pelican Bay Lbr. Co. for ties in 1925 disclosed two old beetle infested trees and two infested trees whereas adjoining ground not cut over showed groups of from 4-20 trees which had been or were infested. It may be that opening the stand increases beetle resistance of the remaining trees. During 1929 cutting was made by the Algoma Lbr. Co. in lodgepole pine near Boundary Butte. This would offer an excellent chance for experimental study of beetle activity in cut over areas should the District Office or the Bureau of Entomology care to undertake such work.

Unfortunately no followup studies were done.

Brown also had an interesting antidote for bears in camp:

Bear raided the cookhouse in 1929 due to their having acquired the habit of visiting the road camp. [The Sand Creek entrance highway was under construction.] If they are fed regularly they will come at that time and should be driven away at other times (see footnote 17).

Trained bears no less.

The 1929 work went smoother for the Forest Service because the crews worked both sides of the east boundary of the park, and Jaenicke spent several weeks training men to spot beetle infested trees. Brown said control work should be continued in 1930 and the cost would be about $1,500 (see footnote 17).

Figure 10—Munson control camp in May 1929, Crater Lake National Park. (A) Some of the control crew sharpening axes, (B) Left to right, unknown (possibly Frank Solinsky); J.E. Patterson, Bureau of Entomology; and the cook's helper, (C) Left to right, Cook Tremain, Assistant Spotter Carter, and Head Spotter Byne, (D) Left to right, Spotter W. Trowbridge and Patterson, (E) Part of the crew; camp foreman Fred Patten is at extreme left.

Figure 11—Unknown compassman, ca. 1929, Crater Lake National Park.

In July 1929, the personnel situation in the Bureau of Entomology changed. J.E. Patterson resigned from Government service to go into the resort business with his father-in-law, Charles William DeCarlow, at Pinehurst, Oregon (see footnote 6). Frederick Paul Keen, an entomologist who started working at the Ashland station in 1914 at the same time as Patterson, was assigned to take his place. Keen was one of the small pioneer group of entomologists along the Pacific coast. He was the first university-trained forest entomologist to work at the Bureau of Entomology, Pacific Slope station (that is, he had both formal forestry and entomology training at the University of California, Berkeley). Keen studied bark beetle biology, ecology, and control methods for several years at the Ashland field station. In 1917, he went into the U.S. Army for the duration of World War I. After farming on family property in southern California for a short time, he joined the new Bureau of Entomology station at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, in 1921. In 1922, he set up a temporary field station at Klamath Falls, Oregon, and led a cooperative bark beetle control project in the area for several years. Keen went on to a distinguished career in forest entomology. He published many papers on silvicultural control of bark beetles. Lessons that he learned at Crater Lake probably instilled an interest in developing ways to prevent insect outbreaks rather than combat them directly. In 1931, he became leader of the Bureau of Entomology, Pacific Northwest Forest Insect Research Station, in Portland Oregon. In 1942, he was placed in charge of both the Portland and Berkeley stations of the Bureau where he directed research until shortly after World War II. He then reverted to Chief of the Berkeley laboratory until his retirement in 1953 (see footnote 6).

Keen took over the control work at Crater Lake in late summer 1929 and prepared a report [18] of the activities that year that was more comprehensive than Patterson's cursory report prepared just before he resigned in July. Keen, as a newcomer, took the first broad ecological look at the results of past control efforts and objectives of the current control work, and presented three alternative plans for future control.

Keen concluded that treatment reduced tree losses from pine beetles on areas treated and it reduced fire hazard, but that it had failed to exterminate the beetles in the park. He further recognized that as long as beetle outbreaks were widespread and surrounding the park there would be continued reinvasion of treated areas from these sources. Keen pointed out that protecting trees solely for aesthetic value was not appropriate because, in the course of stand succession, other species of conifers would replace the dead lodgepole. Here he erred because many of the infested stands were already climax lodgepole and would not be replaced by fir or hemlock. Keen thought that reducing the fire hazard was the only justification for spending such large sums of money on beetle control. He did not comprehend, however, that dead trees create fuel for subsequent wildfire, which initiated the development of new lodgepole pine stands, thus perpetuating this fire-maintained species.

Keen presented three plans for consideration by the Park managers (see footnote 18).

Plan 1. Intensive control work on all the areas infested at the present time, with the idea of eliminating the beetles from the Park areas and saving the remaining lodgepole forests.

To stand a reasonable chance of succeeding, this plan would have to take into account all the adjacent infestation within a radius of twenty-five or thirty miles (since it has been established beyond a reasonable doubt that these beetles may travel for such distances). This would involve the tremendous infestations north of the Lake on the Deschutes and Umpqua National Forests and require the cooperation of the Forest Service in controlling all such infestations in the general vicinity, while within the Park boundaries alone 25,000 to 30,000 acres of lodgepole would have to be combed carefully for infestations and all infested trees treated. To attempt this would require an expenditure of at least $25,000 of Park funds for the fiscal year 1930 and at least half this amount for several years to come. The plan would represent a commendable effort on the part of the Park Service to preserve the lodgepole forests but is doomed to defeat; for it is impossible to eliminate the beetles from such a large area, and sooner or later these stands are due to die and be replaced by other types. The plan is not only futile but would be tremendously expensive.

Plan 2. Control only along the roads in areas of high fire hazard and on recreational areas.

This plan would confine the work to areas on which most of the previous control work has been done, and would mean recleaning these areas for several years until the peak of the present epidemic has passed. It could be carried out with minimum expense and without involving the cooperation of adjacent owners. It would serve the purpose of reducing the fire hazard in areas of high risk and avoid unsightly dead forest areas along the main traveled roads. This plan could be carried out for the fiscal year 1930 with an expenditure of not over $5,000 and about half this amount for the next three or four years.

Plan 3. To do no control work.

If this course is followed the epidemic will soon die out for lack of suitable host material, as another three or four years will see the end of the present mature lodgepole stands in the Park. While this is the cheapest and easiest course to follow, it will leave a very unsightly mess along some of the roads and a bad fire hazard in the very places where fires are most apt to occur.

Figure 12—Compassman and tree spotters (unknown) arbitrate which way the needle is pointing, ca. 1929, Crater Lake National Park.

Keen recommended a continuation of the protection of valuable areas under plan 2 as the most feasible (see footnote 18).

Some of Keen's analyses of the situation were perceptive and ahead of his time. But it would be 30 to 40 years before many forest managers recognized the futility of trying to control mountain pine beetle in dense, overmature lodgepole pine stands.

Keen sent Patterson a copy of his 1929 report and a long letter on Oct. 6, 1929, saying "It is awfully hard to write up anything that you haven't first hand knowledge of and I'm afraid I have done a pretty sorry job of it." [19] It actually was the most succinct and penetrating analysis of the situation thus far. Keen also told Patterson that though he (Keen) advocated a somewhat revised policy, he still recommended a continuation of the protection of special park areas. He also admitted that it was not an attempt to eliminate the beetles from the south end of the park. He told Patterson that they must "abandon all of the isolated areas and concentrate on the protection of those areas where the fire hazard is the highest and are of the most value from the recreational standpoint—in other words the areas where most of the control money has already been spent" (see footnote 19). There is no record of a reply by Patterson to this letter in the files.

The year 1929 is a good year from which to draw a picture of the control camps, equipment, and personnel employed during the spring treating period. In a memo [20] to the Superintendent of Crater Lake National Park, Patterson suggested the following arrangements for 1929:

Control Camps. The personnel of each camp should consist of the following: 1 camp foreman, 1 cook, 1 compassman, 2 spotters, and 14 treaters.

However, the number of treaters may be increased to 20 if conditions warrant. The one spotting crew of 3 men can easily keep ahead of 10 treating crews of 2 men each.

Equipment. Each Camp:
    Cook tent; stove and necessary utensils for feeding the men.

Provisions
    Tents for sleeping quarters, including cots and mattresses.
    Tools (based on camp of 1 spotting crew and 14 treaters):
        1 Staff Compass
        2 Spotting Axes
        1 8x10 Tatum Holder
    2 5x8 Tatum Holder
    Section plats and spotters' record sheets
    Timber Crayons
    14 double-bitted axes (bastard)
    7, 6 1/2-ft. combination falling-bucking saws
    15 canthooks
    1 light truck for use of the foreman in transporting men to and from work and for hauling supplies. (If it is necessary to do the work before snow has disappeared the truck can not be used and transportation effected by tractor and sleds. In this case it would be limited to moving camp equipment in and supplying camp with provisions.)