What's Killing the trees?

TREES ARE DYING IN SEQUIOA NATIONAL PARK

What is killing them?

My educated guess is the following:

The usual suspects: a trifecta of early snow pack melt, insect damage and increasing springtime and summertime temperatures.

Along the route from Fresno along California 178, more than 15% of the firs and spruces were that red, rusty color the conifers turn after death.

I cruised across US 395 a few times this summer and I was pretty worried about the state of western, and specifically Sierra Nevadan, forests when the entire snow pack was GONE by early may. The Owens River Valley and the foothills on both flanks of Kings Canyon and Sequoia are parched. Six seasons of below-average snowfall and rainfall are making their impact in all senses- visually and biologically.

I wish the National Park Service better communicates the dangers facing our parks' overall environmental health to the general public. Media seem uninterested in any science along these lines.

Meanwhile, spruce bud worms, pine borers, gypsy moths and their ilk are happily and busily working to further decimate the forests that comprise America's western National Parks.