Suffolk Closeup: Pine beetles, wildfires and the human impact

What can be done about the infestation of the southern pine beetle in Suffolk County and elsewhere in the northeast where the beetle’s habitat has now been extended because of climate change?

Fortunately for Shelter Island, the beetle is not a problem. The Island is an exception for Suffolk because there are “very few if no pitch pines,” Cindy Belt, the education program manager at the Nature Conservancy-Mashomack Preserve, told me. And last week, Cody Miller,  invasive species specialist at Mashomack, added that the southern pine beetle favors areas to strike where there is a “density of pines.” And unlike other areas in Suffolk, there is no such density on the Island. 

Elsewhere in Suffolk, that isn’t true. And at two recent conferences there were recommendations advanced on what can be done on the southern pine barren issue.

One forum was at LTV, the public access television station in Wainscott, part of the “Pine Protection Project” it has launched. Another was at the Eastern Campus of Suffolk County Community College, convened by Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine.

At LTV this month, Jason C. Smith, science and stewardship manager of Suffolk’s Central Pine Barrens Commission, urged “prescribed” or controlled fires, as did other panelists, to thin out pine forests and thus discourage southern pine beetle activity. He, like Cody Miller, cited the density factor. Smith also pointed to “natural predators” of the southern pine beetle — birds including swallows, mockingbirds and bluebirds.

Another highly effective predator would be the Northern Long-eared Bat, but there has been a 98% drop in their population in recent years, Smith said.

I asked him about this following the conference and he explained that the cause was a fungus brought to the United States from Europe by “spelunkers” — cave explorers — spreading a malady called “white-nose disease” here.

There were two major articles about this last month, including one in Smithsonian Magazine by Lillian Ali who reported that “researchers suggest the damaging fungal spores were first brought to North America by cavers that traveled from Europe … to the United States without completely disinfecting their boots or rope.”

“White-nose syndrome poses a threat not just to bats, but to whole ecosystems,” she continued. “Bats are vital parts of many food chains, eating insects and pollinating plants.”

And there was a piece in The New York Times by science writer Carl Zimmer quoting DeeAnn Reeder, a disease ecologist at Bucknell University, saying: “This is the most dramatic wildlife mortality that’s ever been documented from a pathogen. Millions and millions and millions of animals have died.”

Zimmer’s article began: “In the winter of 2006, biologists in New York State got a gruesome surprise. As they surveyed colonies of hibernating bats, they discovered heaps of dead animals on the floors of caves and abandoned mines. The culprit was a fungus …”

Smith, at the LTV forum, recommended a strategy to “break down beetle communication,” something also pointed to at the Suffolk County Community College symposium. At that conference in April, Jessica Cancelliere, a research scientist with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, said a way to minimize damage caused by the southern pine beetle was cutting off its communication ability. Cancelliere “described how the insects release pheromones when attacking a tree, attracting other beetles to bring together the thousands required to kill the tree,” wrote Joe Werkmeister in Newsday. She explained: “Beetles rely on that communication. They’re not successful without it.”

At that conference, Robert Cole, a DEC forester, said prescribed fires thinning a forest can allow wind to blow and spread out the pheromones so “the beetles don’t know where to go.”

Meanwhile, in its current newsletter, the Long Island Pine Barrens Society declared that “while we don’t have a perfect solution to the Southern Pine Beetle  (SPB) problem, its deleterious effects can be mitigated by … staging prescribed burns and thinning forests … Over the last several years, the SPB, a tiny insect measuring 2-4 mm which is smaller than a grain of rice … has decimated stands of pine trees in our Pine Barrens … How does it do its damage? The SPB loves tightly packed stands of pines. It bores into the tree under the bark and feasts on the tree’s soft tissue and vascular system. They use pheromones to communicate with each other and attack trees as an ‘army.’ Its life cycle is short, which means it multiplies quickly. By the time we can see the bore holes, it’s too late. Is there a solution? Solutions include cutting down infected trees, thinning forest, and perhaps introducing natural predators.”

As to the cause of the southern pine beetle being in Suffolk and now into New England, there is total agreement it’s climate change. Former Vice President Al Gore in his 2006 documentary film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” declared: ““You’ve heard of the pine beetle problem. Those pine beetles used to be killed by cold winters, but there are fewer days of frost. So, the pine trees are being devastated.” This link is now increasingly evident.

Local and state action on the southern pine beetle is important but what are the chances of success with a national administration in denial on climate change? The Trump administration has eliminated action on it with the president calling it a “hoax.” His Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Suffolk resident Lee Zeldin, has “labeled efforts to fight climate change a ‘cult,’” as The New York Times reported this month.

Climate change “is getting worse,” said East Hampton Town Councilman David Lys concluding the LTV forum. And a cost in Suffolk — thousands upon thousands of pine trees killed by the southern pine beetle — is a “harbinger of the human impact on a fragile planet.”