Field Journal: Thoughts on Sudden Oak Death

Ed Jahn, Producer

Sunday, October 01, 2006 — I remember the day a colleague of mine came by my desk ranting about Sudden Oak Death. He'd just finished a phone call with an ecologist of some sort and he painted a bleak, bleak picture of this new plant disease. It was so over-the-top that I thought he was recapping an episode of CSI: Sudden Oak Death. I was skeptical, but I called the ecologist myself.

I do not want to be the millionth reporter to 'cry wolf' about this or that. But in my 6 years of reporting for Oregon Field Guide I can't remember an issue where the stakes were so high and yet public awareness was so low. This much I learned: Sudden Oak Death could devastate Oregon's forests. It could drive tanoak to extinction. Wildlife will suffer. And if the disease takes hold, there will be no avoiding the sight of huge swaths of dead forest.

And yet it's something that, perhaps, we can stop.