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Dr. Seuss Explains the Rocky Mountain Pine Beetle Epidemic

I found the following wonderful poem on the online news service, NewWest.com. Cheers to Jenny Shank!

Red%2C%20dead-small.jpg

RED, DEAD
red trees are dead

Medicine Bow National Forest
Carbon County, Wyoming
photo by Sharon O'Toole

Dr. Seuss Explains the Rocky Mountain Pine Beetle Epidemic

By Jenny Shank, 4-01-10

I will not eat green pine, says Flea.
Trees do not taste so good to me.
I will, I will, says the beetle.
I will eat them down to needles.

The beetles bite, they bore through bark.
They bore all day, they bite in dark.
They lay their eggs inside the tree.
And that makes more of them, you see.

The beetles eat all types of pine.
The mountain air suits them just fine.
Lodgepole, Whitebark, Scots and Limber
They will eat all sorts of timber.

RED RED
the needles turn red.

RED DEAD
red trees are dead.

BROWN DOWN
Brown trees fall down.

BURN TURN
In turn, they’ll burn.

To read the entire poem, go to the following link

http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/dr_seuss_explains_the_rocky_mountain_pine_beetle_epidemic/C39/L39/

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The opinions expressed in the Western Folklife Center's Deep West online journals are those of the online journal participants and not the Western Folklife Center. The Western Folklife Center does not moderate these journals and as such does not guarantee the veracity, reliability or completeness of any information provided in the journals or in any hyperlink appearing within them.

About Pat & Sharon O'Toole

Sharon O'Toole
Pat and Sharon O’Toole are ranchers in the Little Snake River Valley near Savery, Wyoming, right on the Colorado-Wyoming border. They raise cattle, sheep, horses, dogs and children. Pat “immigrated” from Florida in 1970. He attended Colorado State University, where he met Sharon when both worked for the campus newspaper. Sharon grew up on their ranch, where they live and work with her father, their daughter, son and granddaughter (soon to be grandchildren!). Pat is a “water buffalo” and has served in the Wyoming House of Representatives (1986-1992), on the President’s Western Water Policy Review Advisory Commission, and is the current President of the Family Farm Alliance, which advocates for farmers, ranchers and irrigators. Sharon is an author, poet and journalist. She writes extensively on Western issues and is a columnist for “The Shepherd” magazine. Pat and Sharon are the parents of three children: Meghan, 27; Bridget, 26; and Eamon, 20.
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