Out of curiousity is the concern only that pine trees are going to be dying and it may look unsightly? In my opinion many of the pinelands forest are choked with pine trees, and for the species that I'm familar with this dense forest provides very little benefit. In contrast forest with numerous downed trees, dying trees with a more spaced out forest provides lots of benefit. The dead trees that are standing provide habitat for woodpeckers, the downed trees on the ground provide habitat for snakes, lizards and rodents. Lots of forest here need to be opened up and are too overgrown, if the pine beetle helps this process I'm ok with it. I like the burning idea but that makes too much sense so we won't do it. Also its not like these are bugs that got here unaturally, nature will keep everything in balance, but of course we have to frickin micro manage everything.
But why is it disturbing to see pine trees dying naturally? I could be missing something here about the threat of pine beetles, but a pine tree on the ground provides lots of habitat and benefit to many pinelands species. From my experience there is not enough downed trees because of lack of fire.
Also there is bias on both parties who spoke in the article.
