California’s historic drought has branded a searing scar on the state’s flora and fauna. Cracked lake beds, rotting vineyards, and utter havoc on crops have all been caused by the drought, but perhaps one of the worst beatings came to the majestic pines of the Sierra Nevada. The conifers and the pines of the mountain range have presided as sentinels over the Sierra Nevada long before the first American journeymen from the East Coast stumbled across their epic glory. Some of these trees have even been here for four centuries. These ancient trees, however, have been weathered by time and the elements, and although magnificent, are easy targets for the drought and a far deadlier adversary.

A focal point of the destruction is California’s policy on wildfires, which is to put them out and prevent them as soon as they pop up. This, however, brings negative consequences. Without these fires, forests cannot go through a natural cleansing phase, where dead and weak trees are razed in favor of the sustainability of larger, healthier trees. These fires also allow the ground to heal and hold more water and nutrients, as the number of roots decreases. Because all wildfires are prevented at the smallest conflagration, there is a density of trees that suck up loads of water. Coupled with the drought, these weakened trees are easy pickings for the Sierra’s pines’ natural predator: beetles.

Western pine beetles look like any other ordinary beetle, except they are far deadlier. The cycle of a pine beetle infestation is relentless. First, the females burrow into the tan inner bark, or phloem, of the tree to lay hundreds upon hundreds of eggs. Next, the white, disgusting maggots eat their way into the middle bark, a great source of food for the beetles but the only circulation a tree has for its nutrients and water. Months after the infestation, these parasites kill their host, but it can be even quicker in the summer as the larvae mature faster in the blistering humidity. The feasted, fully-grown beetles then escape the carcass, only to run amok on other trees.

Normally, pine trees can easily fend off western pine beetles and their relatives by secreting a sap-like substance to petrify and kill the insects. However, the extreme stress caused by the drought weakens defenses and makes consuming and conserving water the number one priority. Without water, there is no way to produce the resin to exterminate the pests.

However, there is a light to quell this darkness. Nate Stephenson, an ecologist of the Sequoia National Park, makes a comforting statement: “Most of the forest is still here.” In fact, pines at higher elevations have escaped the beetle onslaught altogether and other species of trees, such as white firs and incense cedars, have far less mortality rates than the pines. Furthermore, the casualties will allow survivors to have less competition and perhaps even recover from both the infestation and the drought. Nevertheless, the forest of the Sierra Nevada is still scarred and will probably never return to its former majesty hundreds of years ago. Christy Brigham, acting superintendent of the Sequoia and King national parks, earnestly and sadly sums it up, “The world has changed… We’re never going to be able to get back to where we were before.”