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Anyone have any information as to why the trees in front of AA are being cut down and ground out? Every time I walk by there is one less tree there. There's also a bunch of metal rods lying on the ground like a tent is gonna be put up or something.

Can you say Emerald Ash Borer boys and girls?

These are just a few of roughly 100 campus trees that have or will bite the chain saw by spring.

Trees?

The trees looked quite healthy. I do have some limited landscaping experience and I know several diseases and insects from that. These trees didn't look like there was any problem. These weren't tiny little trees either, these have been here for at least 20 years.

The Niz wrote:The trees looked quite healthy. I do have some limited landscaping experience and I know several diseases and insects from that. These trees didn't look like there was any problem. These weren't tiny little trees either, these have been here for at least 20 years.

Doesn't matter. They're cutting down all ash trees w/in X miles of a found infestation. If you ask me, it's overkill (I worked at an arboretum and gardens for 9 years....) but it's also legislated I'm pretty sure. Find an ash borer, start cutting down trees.

The Village of Elmore cut down ALL our ash trees, just as a preventative measure.

Elvis Costello has a song with the line "Hurry down doomsday, the bugs are taking over...." In this case, I think the bugs won!

Glad someone asked about this. I've been wondering this too. It's a shame they have to get rid of them. If they cut down all our trees, other schools won't be able to mock us for having "only one tree", it'll be fairly obvious... They won't have any ammunition left!

Anyone know if they're planning to plant new ones in place of the old? I saw one small tree there that I wasn't sure I had seen before, but anyone know for sure?

It's ridiculous the way they're cutting down all the ash trees because of the borer. I realize that they need to stop the spread, but c'mon.

It reminds me of the South Park where they were all afraid their children would get kidnapped so they made all the children leave town...

Stupid Mongorians.

What a shame to see the ash going. As a species, I think ash is gravely underestimated. For example, the most famous ash of all time probably has to be "Yggdrasil", the Vikings' "world tree", a huge and sacred ash which held together earth, heaven, and hell, among other things. Ash is special.

When I checked out the emerald ash borer it left me thinking about how Dutch Elm disease changed the face of Britain's ancient countryside at a stroke in a disastrous decade during the 1960's - '70s. Of an estimated 30 million standing elms before the epidemic, the UK's Forestry Commission believe the fungus, carried by the elm bark beetle, killed 20 million trees, rising to 25 million by 1995.

Today, most elm in the UK survives only in hedgerows. It would be 250 - 500 years before anything sprouting now would mature into the kind of majestic specimens lost to the nation. This might not be bad news, though. Medieval countryside lore advised against afternoon siestas underneath elm, which had a rather predictable habit of precipitously shedding boughs on unwitting nappers sheltering under its largesse. I say siesta, but this implies siestas were a recognized cultural practice. This is not at all the case for those at the wrong end of the feudal system. What I am really referring to are indiginous British labourers slacking off work and getting no more than they probably deserved. Unfortunately, the gene responsible for "the British Disease" persists to this day.

Anyhow, I suppose the moral of the story is that if direct action now can save a nation's stock of ash, it must be a good thing, sad as it is. Greater good and all that. I would be interested in any schemes the university might promote to buy/plant/sponsor a tree to restore its standing timber. Not that I'm a vegetarian "green" type. I just "do" trees. I wonder who to write to.

Losing more trees again on campus? Damn. Wasn’t it last year that we had a bunch of trees cut down long Wooster Street because they were “dangerous” trees? This is sad news to hear. Like many of you, I hate to hear about more trees being cut down on our campus. It seems like every year we lose more and more trees and it certainly has the appearance nowadays that we have lost more trees in recent years than have ever been replanted. What’s more, it’s not like we actually have a lot of trees on campus to begin with, and to now hear about losing more is sort of depressing. I guess I understand why they are doing it from the explanations listed above, but any time I see us lose mature trees for whatever the reason, it’s doesn’t exactly help the look of campus IMO. The main quad in front of University Hall and bell tower quad are the only real areas we have a sort of wooded look. I guess we can only hope these trees will be replanted with others. How many have they taken down so far? Any idea of how many are left to remove and where else on campus they will be removed from? Are they planning on replanting with a different type of tree? Any info would be appreciated.

Maybe someday we will learn that you can't control mother nature. As Jeff Goldblum's character says in Jurassic Park, it will find a way to adapt.

Just a thought...if you kill all this bug's food don't you think that eventually it will find a way to eat something else to survive? Maybe a maple tree, or an oak tree, etc.