If you haven’t noticed, I have a passion for, or better yet, an obsession for oaks.
Oaks are a fixture for me. They let me know where I am in life. The sad reality is oaks of all types, especially our western varieties, are in serious trouble!
From sudden oak death, to Mediterranean oak borer, leafy mistletoe, construction blight, and many unforeseen maladies, oak populations are rapidly declining.
Take the introduction of wild pigs and non-native turkeys in California oak forests, for example. Both of these animals absolutely decimate the regeneration of baby oaks by simply scouring the forest floor in search of the protein rich mast called acorns. If you look closely at a California oak woodland where pigs and turkeys thrive, you will notice one thing. No baby oaks! No seedlings, no young trees as they just hammer them before they can get their head above water.
There was at one time, enough for the squirrels and deer and bears, but now…
If we started an acorn carpet bombing campaign tomorrow, I still don’t think we would have an effect on oak regeneration with any noticeable effect.
I just returned from a wild and scenic trip down the Rogue River between Grave Creek and Foster Bar with 3 very knowledgeable and talented local arborists. I have noticed in the last 8 or so years, a serious decline of canyon live oaks along that stretch of river. The common consensus among our group of tree guys was the same. Whatever is killing thousands of those trees is not normal, expected, or inconsequential. The canyon live oaks in that canyon are in serious trouble. That is just one type of oak, in just that one stretch of canyon, on just that one day.
To lose just one type of tree along that stretch of river will change the whole dynamic of the canyon, as the chain effect it would have on the myriad of insects, invertebrates, mammals, birds, fungi, as well as other trees could be in my opinion, devastating for the forest ecology as a whole.
