WHAT’S GOING ON IN THE FOREST?
This photo was taken back in 2023 on one of my favorite streams. It’s located in one of the most remote areas of the Catskills, yet it’s highly infected with hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA); A devastating insect brought into the US sometime in the mid-1900s that attacks hemlock trees. When I first came to this stream to see if brook trout lived there with my fishing pole back in 2007, there was no discernible damage. The hemlocks there are large and tall, so seeing if HWA was present high up in the canopy was difficult. I’ve watched these trees disintegrate since then. In fact, getting to the waterfall just downstream of this spot is extremely difficult since there are so many black birch saplings now growing from additional sunlight as hemlock recedes. Black birch is shade-tolerant, and deer don’t seem to prefer eating it very much. Therefore, it’s becoming quite common under dying hemlocks in the Catskills. Hopefully one day, there will be a biological control against HWA.
May the Forest Be with You,
Ryan Trapani
Director of Forest Services
Catskill Forest Association