SAVE THE TREES!
Local agencies, non-profits, for profits team up to restore pine population at June Mountain
On September 22, The Inyo National Forest, in partnership with California Trout and Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, received a National Fish and Wildlife grant amounting to $490,144. The funds were awarded to California Trout to oversee the June Mountain Ski Area Whitebark Pine Restoration project.
According to a press release from The USFS, MMSA will carry out the contract to remove “dead and dying coniferous trees on 110 acres of selected whitebark pine stands to promote seed cache behavior by Clark’s Nutcracker…” The intent is to remove bark beetle-impacted trees to improve forest health and decrease the risk of a high intensity, high heat, large scale wildland fire in such close proximity to June Lake. The stand of dead trees is upstream from the Grant Lake and Rush Creek Watersheds, and a large scale forest fire would flush sediment into the historic spawning waters of the wild Brown Trout that live there.
