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The whitebark pine of the northern Rocky Mountains faces a perfect storm of perils: beetles, a non-native fungus and global warming. What's more, any threat to this tree puts America's best-known bear in grave danger in one of its last strongholds in the Lower 48: Greater Yellowstone. |
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Amazing as it might seem, the mighty Yellowstone grizzly relies heavily on whitebark pine nuts. When nut crops are thin, the bear has to forage at lower elevations, where it is often shot and killed. Unfortunately, whitebark pine could be functionally extinct in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem as soon as ten years from now. To save this crucial conifer, NRDC has petitioned the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to add it to the federal endangered species list. "If we want to save not just the whitebark pine but animals like the grizzly bear that depend on this tree for food," says NRDC's Louisa Willcox, "we must move to protect them now."
The threats to whitebark pine have been interwoven with and amplified by global warming. White pine blister rust is a fungal disease that sickens and often kills the tree. Infestations of mountain pine beetles, which kill whitebarks fast, are at record levels -- and they favor trees weakened by blister rust. Worse, global warming broadens the reach of mountain pine beetles while limiting the whitebark's range. Whitebark pine forests are critical to their ecosystem because they stake out the highest elevations in the harshest landscapes, creating shelter for Clark's nutcrackers, elk, deer and grouse. They also help control erosion and springtime flooding. "This sprightly looking tree is the king of its ecosystem," says NRDC scientist Dr. Sylvia Fallon, "and Yellowstone's grizzlies face an uncertain future without it."
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