Saving Park Forests: Eastern Woods, Hawaiian Forest Birds and Whitebark Pine

Across the National Park System, the Park Service's Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) Division is helping managers improve the health of forest ecosystems through partnerships that share information, pool funding and act together. Three are now growing with money from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

A whitebark pine monitoring team counts pinecones in Yellowstone National Park. NPS / Jacob W. Frank

Eastern forests that cannot replace themselves

In November 2022, 120 Park Service biologists, invasive plant teams, regional leaders, I&M staff and partners met for three days on the threats to northeastern forests: a changing climate, too many deer, new pests and pathogens, invasive plants, and altered disturbance patterns. Since then, five I&M networks — Eastern Rivers and Mountains, Northeast Temperate, Mid-Atlantic, National Capital and Northeast Coastal and Barrier — have worked with parks and outside organizations as the Resilient Forests Initiative.

Stony Man Trail, Shenandoah National Park, in the Mid-Atlantic Network. NPS / D. Ippilito

A study of 12 years of monitoring, published in Ecological Applications, found forests in 27 of 39 eastern parks (69%) in imminent or probable danger of regeneration failure. Interacting stressors — above all overabundant white-tailed deer, invasive plants and insect pests — mean many parks lack the seedlings and saplings to replace canopy trees as they die, and spreading non-native plants suppress regrowth further. Park-by-park briefs are available from the Schoodic Institute.

National Capital Region Network biologists measure trees and saplings and count seedlings to track new growth. NPS / Claire Hassler

That was only the start of an effort to help more than 25 parks sustain their forests. A 2024 virtual workshop brought staff together again, and the initiative laid the ground for several successful BIL and IRA proposals: removing invasive shrubs, planting climate- and pest-adapted native trees, managing deer, encouraging oak regeneration, protecting forests in historic battlefields and cultural landscapes, responding to insect pests, and protecting high-quality streams.

Keeping Hawaiian forest birds alive

ʻIʻiwi on ʻiliahi (Haleakalā sandalwood), Haleakalā National Park. NPS / David Yates

Mosquitoes and avian malaria are not native to Hawaiʻi, and native forest birds have no resistance. The birds once found refuge higher up, where it was too cold for mosquitoes; a warming climate has let mosquitoes climb into their range. Many species are already extinct or gone from the lower parts of their range. Without immediate action, several endangered species will vanish within the next decade, and ultimately 12 of the 17 remaining native species will be lost.

At Haleakalā National Park, the Pacific Island Network leads a multi-agency effort, having secured, planned and allocated $13.2 million for a new program using the incompatible insect technique (IIT):

• About half of all insects carry an intracellular parasite called Wolbachia.
• Mosquitoes carrying different strains of Wolbachia cannot breed successfully together — their eggs do not hatch.
• Scientists release 500,000 incompatible male mosquitoes a week to mate with wild females. The eggs produce nothing, and over time the mosquito population — and avian malaria — declines.

It is the first use of IIT for conservation, achieved on an aggressive timeline thanks to a decade of the network's monitoring data, expertise and partnerships. Landscape-scale management could now quickly protect most of Haleakalā's endangered forest bird habitat, and lay the groundwork for similar programs at Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park and elsewhere in Hawaiʻi. The project is funded by BIL, IRA, the Department of the Interior, the State of Hawaiʻi and nongovernmental organizations.

Whitebark pine across the West

Long-term whitebark pine monitoring plots in Yellowstone National Park. NPS / Jacob W. Frank

In high country from the Sierra Nevada to the Pacific Northwest and northern Rocky Mountains, whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) can make the difference between bare slopes and rich plant and animal communities. A hardy keystone species near treeline, it slows erosion, and its seeds are high-energy food for birds and mammals. But it is declining: white pine blister rust, native mountain pine beetles and intense wildfire, all worsened by climate change, led to its listing as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act in January 2023.

A young whitebark pine beside an Engelmann spruce, Glacier National Park. NPS photo

The Klamath, Mojave Desert, Rocky Mountain and Upper Columbia Basin networks also monitor five-needle pines — whitebark, bristlecone, foxtail and limber. The NPS Five-Needle Pine Team (17 parks, 6 networks) shares information and solves problems together; its projects have drawn more than $2 million in BIL and IRA funding for seed collection, planting blister rust–resistant seeds and saplings, and modelling the best places to plant.

More: how I&M science is making a difference.

Sources

Based on "Inventory & Monitoring Partnerships Aim to Improve Park Forest Health from Coast to Coast," National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The source's "Englemann spruce" is corrected to Engelmann.