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Saving the whitebark pine

Planting program initiated to keep tree numbers up while W-B, Naturalists hope for a breakthrough The whitebark pine is a unique and sturdy species that is well adapted to survive at high altitudes, clinging to the rock and thin soil of Whistler moun

Planting program initiated to keep tree numbers up while W-B, Naturalists hope for a breakthrough

The whitebark pine is a unique and sturdy species that is well adapted to survive at high altitudes, clinging to the rock and thin soil of Whistler mountainsides through high winds, heavy rains and blizzards.

It also plays an important role in the ecosystem, battling soil erosion in the alpine while providing food to alpine species of squirrels and birds. It has even formed a symbiotic relationship with the Clark’s nutcracker, providing food in exchange for some help spreading cones and seeds.

Now the whitebark pine is in danger of extinction as a foreign species of fungus, the European white pine blister rust, continues to spread and kill off trees before they can reach maturity and start producing cones.

"In the alpine, the trees don’t start producing cones until they are 60 years old minimum, probably 100 years old on average," explains Bob Brett, an ecologist and director with the Whistler Naturalists who launched the Whitebark Pine Conservation Project four years ago.

"When those trees that are producing cones are done in (by the fungus), there are no seeds in the hamper, so to speak. The species will die out."

Nobody knows how long that will take, but Brett believes it could happen in the next 50 to 100 years.

It’s impossible to kill off or control the Blister Rust, although many have tried. It functions on a two-year cycle, moving back and forth from the trees to bushes in the valley. Spores have been known to travel more than 300 kilometres.

After the second World War, the U.S. government spent $400 million in an attempt to destroy the species of bushes that carry the Blister Rust along the West Coast, but was unsuccessful.

"The only way it will work is to wait our the Blister Rust until a natural or human-made resistance can be found," said Brett.

Brett’s goal is to harvest as many cones as possible in good years, and produce seedlings. The seedlings will be planted in the alpine, and monitored closely. Some pruning will be necessary to remove infected branches from trees.

By increasing the number of trees and keeping them healthy, Brett hopes to produce enough cones to keep the species around until the resistance can be found. This year volunteers managed to plant 200 seedlings on top of the first seedlings planted last year. More will be ready to plant in the summer of 2005. With no seedlings ready to plant in the summer of 2004, that will be a pruning year.

Brett would like to be able to plant 1,000 seedlings a year to be safe.

Ideally, the resistance to Blister Rust will develop naturally, as it has in Europe where a similar tree and similar bird to the Clark’s nutcracker have adapted to the fungus. Finding a genetic answer will cost money, and because the whitepark pine is not an important species economically, that funding would be hard to find.

The Whitebark Pine Conservation Project is a joint effort. It’s funded mainly by the Whistler-Blackcomb Environmental Fund, which is endowed by Whistler-Blackcomb employees, and matching donations from the company.

The Ministry of Forests has helped by collecting the cones, separating the seeds, and growing seedlings for the project in provincial nurseries. The UBC Centre for Gene Conservation is also involved.

There is some urgency to the project, with the future of the species largely dependent on how many cones can be harvested, without robbing the Clark’s nutcracker of its favourite food source.

The whitepark pine only produces cones ever three to four years. After poor collections the past two years, Brett is expecting a bumper crop, called a mast year, next summer. After that, the planting begins in earnest.

This year just seven volunteers turned out to plant the 200 seedlings in the 7 th Heaven area of Blackcomb Mountain, which is a difficult job in the rocky soil. If the volunteers start to see 1,000 seedlings, far more volunteers will be needed to make the project a success. Funding will also be needed.

The trick, says Brett, is getting people to care about the whitebark pine. That’s not as hard as it sounds, especially when people get to know the tree, and the niche role it plays in the alpine ecology.

"It’s an important tree, although most people don’t know it," said Brett.

"There are watershed values, and it helps to slow down erosion and slow the snow melt for the hydrology of the ecosystem," he said.

Cones also provide a valuable food source for squirrels and the Clark’s nutcracker.

It’s also an interesting species from an evolutionary standpoint, as a result of the symbiotic relationships between the Clark’s nutcracker and the whitebark pine.

Unlike other cones, the whitebark variety won’t open or break when it hits the ground. Only the Clark’s nutcracker, with its specially adapted beak, can open the cones. Their habitat also happens to be perfect for the seeds, which means the nutcracker is also responsible for spreading the seeds to the proper areas.

Because of the alignment of the cones on the tree, it is believed that the tree has evolved as a result of the nutracker. The nutcracker has also evolved as a result of the whitebark pine.

Recent studies have also shown that the whitebark pine is important for grizzly bear species, as more grizzly cubs are born the year after a mast year for whitebark pine cones than average.

"It’s a really good story. It’s a natural history story about evolution and ecology that shows the interrelationships that develop between different species, even in a fragile environment," said Brett.

"Now, because of a human mistake, we risk the extinction of the species. We can make a difference locally, a small contribution, but a contribution nonetheless. In the worst case scene, Whistler-Blackcomb could become the only place in North America to have whitepark pine."

In addition to the ecological uniqueness of the whitebark, Brett says people should help out because it is a beautiful species that contributes to the aesthetic quality of the Whistler alpine.

In addition to planting 200 seedlings in four different habitats, volunteers helped out the Whitebark Pine Conservation Project this summer by collecting 150 cones. They could have taken more, but Brett wanted to leave enough for the Clark’s nutcracker and local squirrels.

Although that was fewer cones than he hoped for, in ideal conditions they could produce about 1,500 seedlings.

Typically only five per cent of seedlings will germinate, but a UBC process that stores the seeds for six months in the freezer had a 30 per cent success rate.

"It’s not going to be an easy project, but if we get the right recipe of things together, we might be able to keep the species from going extinct here. If there’s a possibility of that, I think we have to make the most of it," said Brett.