Humans fostering forest-destroying disease

Enjoying your August vacation? Well, (as they say in the summer movies) there’s a killer in the woods. Its strike has been consistently quiet, sudden, and deadly. Unknowingly, we have all been playing into its hands… But put down that rock -- you personally are not in any danger. It’s the woods themselves that are getting axed and you may be an accomplice.

Melodrama aside, the threat is very serious – the killer is an invasive, forest-destroying plant disease known as Sudden Oak Death. Caused by an (apparently) non-native water mold (Phytophthora ramorum), the disease affects a broad range of woody plants, and is particularly lethal to our native oaks. In the last few years, it has infected and killed large stands of western oaks with alarming suddenness (hence the name). From its initial California appearance sometime in the mid-1990’s, the disease has been spreading rapidly, changing the landscape as it goes.