Stewards of the Yale Toumey Forest plan to take down many more of the forest’s red pines over the next two years due to an infestation of an invasive species that kills the trees. Yale University has been cutting red pines and replacing them with other species since long before the pest’s discovery last year in preparation for an eventual infestation, said Joseph Orefice, director of forest and agricultural operations.

Although cutting down trees might seem counterintuitive to promoting forest health, Orefice explained the issue is more complicated, and cuttings can be positive for the forest ecosystem.

The university, which owns and manages the 1,930-acre forest in Swanzey and Keene, became aware of the infestation last summer when the N.H. Division of Forests and Lands identified the invasive species, named the red pine scale, there. The pest kills the trees by latching onto them and extracting nutrients. Kyle Lombard, an official with the forests and lands division, previously said an infestation is essentially a death sentence for the trees.

The infestation in the Yale Toumey Forest, which Yale School of Environment students use for research and to learn sustainable forestry management practices, led Keene to proactively remove red pines in city parks and to recently cut down a swath of these trees in Wheelock Park. The trees will be replaced with a variety of other species, and more cuttings are planned in Keene in the future, Carrah Fisk Hennessey, the city’s director of parks and recreation, said in March.

Orefice said the red pines in the Yale forest were planted to be harvested for lumber but lose their value once dead. Plans call for taking down many of the trees in the next couple of years before this occurs. Some of the dead standing trees will be left because of the benefits they provide wildlife in the area, he said.

“What’s hard is people simplify: Cutting a tree is bad, or cutting a tree is good,” Orefice said. “Good forest management is about the conditions you’re creating. And so it’s not really about whether you cut a tree or not. It’s whether you created a condition that put that forest in a successful path for regenerating new trees or maybe growing the existing trees better.”

The university is using a process of natural regeneration to replace the red pines that are cut down, according to Orefice, who explained that this means relying on seeds that are naturally in the environment, rather than planting new trees, which is costly. Another benefit of natural regeneration is the trees that grow are native to the region, he noted.

“We know enough about the ecology of these trees to just be able to manipulate the light conditions that reach the understory to obtain the type of regeneration that we would like,” Orefice said. For new trees to grow, old ones must be cut, he added.

Orefice also pointed out that wood is a renewable resource. “We’re trying to just salvage some of the value while creating a condition that’s going to … be a healthy, new, regenerating forest,” he said.

He said plans call for cutting down most of the red pines, while leaving some standing, explaining it’s not good for the forest ecology to eliminate all of the trees that are going die because of the benefits they provide. Woodpeckers, mice and squirrels make use of dead trees, he said: “They’re like a kitchen pantry” for wildlife.

Dead trees left standing can be a safety hazard for people, Lombard previously said, and it’s better to remove them before they die.

However, the Yale Toumey Forest does not have any hiking trails.

The infestation discovered there last summer is just the most recent local turn of an outbreak of red pine scale in southern New Hampshire. The first documented infestation occurred in Bear Brook State Park in 2012. Several acres of red pines were removed there and replaced with a variety of species.

Nearby communities where infestations have been identified include Fitzwilliam, Hopkinton, Jaffrey, Marlow, Peterborough, Rindge and Troy, according to the University of New Hampshire.

When it comes to forest management in the state, Orefice said, “there’s a lot of goals.

“And if one goal overshadows all the other, that’s where things can be detrimental,” he said.

Sophia Keshmiri can be reached at 603-283-0725 or skeshmiri@keenesentinel.com.

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