High in the evergreen canopy of General Sherman, the world’s largest tree, researchers searched for evidence of an emerging threat to giant sequoias: bark beetles.
High in the evergreen canopy of General Sherman, the world’s largest tree, researchers searched for evidence of an emerging threat to giant sequoias: bark beetles.
They descended the towering 2,200-year-old tree with good news on Tuesday.
„The General Sherman tree is doing fine right now,“ said Anthony Ambrose, executive director of the Ancient Forest Society, who led the climbing expedition. „It seems to be a very healthy tree that’s able to fend off any beetle attack.“
It was the first time that climbers had scaled the iconic 275-foot (85-meter) sequoia tree, which draws tourists from around the world to Sequoia National Park.
Giant sequoias, the Earth’s largest living things, have survived for thousands of years in California’s western Sierra Nevada mountain range, the only place where the species is native.
But as the climate grows hotter and drier, giant sequoias previously thought to be almost indestructible are increasingly threatened by extreme heat, drought and wildfires.
In 2020 and 2021, record-setting wildfires killed as much as 20 percent of the world’s 75,000 mature sequoias, according to park officials.
„The most significant threat to giant sequoias is climate-driven wildfires,“ said Ben Blom, director of stewardship and restoration at Save the Redwoods League. „But we certainly don’t want to be caught by surprise by a new threat, which is why we’re studying these beetles now.“
But researchers are growing more worried about bark beetles, which didn’t pose a serious threat in the past.
The beetles are native to California and have co-existed with sequoias for thousands of years.
