KALISPELL — Nature is meeting education on the Flathead Valley Community College campus this week.
Students are working with the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC) to log trees on school property that have been impacted by the western pine beetle.
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The logging project is taking down ponderosa pine trees that are infested by the western pine beetle that have been found on campus.
FVCC noted in an email that the trees are about 130 years old and are a fixture of the riparian corridor along the Stillwater River.
The trees were identified as infested by forestry students who created an app to help map ponderosa pines across the valley.
FVCC Natural Resource Conservation and Management students are working with the DNRC — and some logging companies — this week to chop the trees down in order to stop the beetle spread.
The group has also called on citizen scientists to help map trees across the Flathead Valley.
Visit this website for more information on how to complete the mapping.
Click here to learn more about how the ponderosa pine decline in the Flathead Valley began.
