Whitebark pine population being restored in Waterton
In maturity, the whitebark pine can stand 20 metres tall and live 500 years. But the once-hardy species is now threatened throughout Canada.
White pine blister rust, fire suppression, the mountain pine beetle and climate change are all taking their toll, biologists report. Some stands in Waterton Lakes National Park are reported to have an 80- to 90-per-cent rust infection rate.
And whitebark pine is found in all our mountain parks, not just Waterton.
So Parks Canada teams are taking steps to improve the natural renewal of this at-risk species.
Some of the seed-producing pines show resistance to the rust, they’ve found. So they’re planting tree stock grown from their seeds.
Some seedlings are also inoculated with spores of a native fungus called “Siberian slippery jack,” parks staff say. The spores have a symbiotic relationship with pines, and they help young trees gather the nutrients they need.
Prescribed burns also used to restore and improve whitebark pine habitat in sub-alpine regions in the Rockies. Officials say the fires replicate natural conditions under which whitebark pine previously evolved and thrived.
The fires remove competing vegetation and they create nutrient-rich habitat suitable for planting hopefully blister rust-resistant whitebark pine seedlings.
And this fall, Parks Canada staff in Waterton planted 1,000 rust-resistant seedlings on Sofa Mountain, in an area burned by prescribed fire earlier in the season.
They point out the whitebark pine recovery effort in Waterton is part of restoration initiatives taking place throughout other national parks — and with co-operation from provincial, academic and international partners.
Neighbouring Glacier National Park in Montana has been helping, they add, by growing the whitebark pine seedlings for the past seven years — up to 6,000 seedlings so far.
National parks personnel also work with Alberta Agriculture and Forestry, with the U.S. Forest Service and with the British Columbia Forest Service.