Be on the lookout for oak wilt
It seems like Western New York forests are under constant attack, in wars that they can’t win. In the early 1900s, chestnut trees were exterminated from our woodlands by chestnut blight. Dutch elm disease wiped out impressive stands of elms from the 1950s through the 1980s. Ash trees have been all but eliminated by the emerald ash borer over the past 15 years, about the same time beech trees began their decline due to beech bark disease. The hemlock woolly adelgid keeps making itself known in the region. As our forests reel from those diseases and pests, and are forever changed, more pestilence is piled upon them. Another threat being posed to WNY forests is oak wilt. Until only recently, oak wilt was almost unheard of in New York. There was a small outbreak in Glenville in Schenectady County in 2008 that was contained and then found to have recurred in 2013, which was also contained. Then, in 2016, some was found in Islip on Long Island. Then along came some local findings. In...