Climate change threatens pine tree, U.S. says
Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, July 20, 2011
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined Monday that whitebark pine, a tree found atop mountains across the American West, faces an "imminent" risk of extinction because of factors including climate change.
The decision is significant because it marks the first time the federal government has identified climate change as one of the driving factors for why a broad-ranging tree species could disappear. The Canadian government has declared whitebark pine to be endangered throughout its entire range; a recent study found that 80 percent of whitebark pine forests in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem are dead or dying.
The Natural Resources Defense Council asked the Fish and Wildlife Service to place the tree on the endangered species list. In its determination, the agency said that it found a listing was "warranted but precluded," meaning the pine deserved federal protection but the government could not afford that.
The whitebark pine, which grows in the Sierra Nevada, the Cascade Range, the Pacific Coast Ranges and the northern Rocky Mountains, will remain a candidate under the Endangered Species Act and will come under review annually.
An invasive disease, white pine blister rust, along with insects such as mountain pine beetles, has infiltrated the historically colder altitudes where whitebark pines thrive. The tree is a critical part of the West's high-elevation habitats: It helps to slow the annual melt of snowpack and provides food for animals such as grizzly bears and Clark's nutcracker.