Beech and Bears

This is a beech tree right on one of our hiking/skiing trails.

One of the wonderful things about beech trees is that their smooth gray bark holds any mark -- so they have been over the years a popular choice for those who carve initials inside hearts.

Or, as here, bears who carve their signatures as they climb.

And why climb a beech tree?  Because these magnificent trees are the most prolific producers of food for bear and deer and squirrels and chipmunks and wild turkey... Once they get to be about thirty years old, beech trees produce bounteous harvests of beech nuts, protein rich...  and critical to the winter well-being of so many animals.

Sadly, these trees are now under attack by Beech disease, which is slowly marching across the country from the Maritimes, where it was introduced accidentally about a century ago.  So many of our lovely beech will succumb to this -- once they are attacked by the fungus, they usually die within the year.  We don't know how many of them will survive, but we do know that our local bear is going to miss them.  Us too...