High in the evergreen canopy of General Sherman, the world’s largest tree, researchers searched for evidence of an emerging threat to giant sequoias: bark beetles. They descended the towering 2,200-year-old tree with good news on Tuesday. “The General Sherman tree is doing fine right now,” said Anthony Ambrose, executive director of the Ancient Forest Society, who led the climbing expedition. “It seems to be a very healthy tree that’s able to fend off any beetle attack.
“We’re documenting some trees that are actually dying from kind of a combination of drought and fire that have weakened them to a point where they’re not able to defend themselves from the beetle attack,” Ambrose said. The beetles attack the trees from the canopy, boring into branches and working their way down the trunk. If left unchecked, the tiny beetles can kill a tree within six months. That’s why park officials allowed Ambrose and his colleagues to climb General Sherman.