Hey
all,
It’s finally out! I got a copy of The New Yorker today and was
very pleased. Richard did a great job conveying the visuals of the
dying forest to words.
David
Huff and I are currently moving forward on the fund raising effort
for the film, “The Vanishing Hemlock”. If you have any
contacts you would recommend we pursue for funding please email
David (the executive producer/director) or me. His email
announcing the article is forwarded below. Better yet, if you want
to donate funds yourself please visit the link below! All
donations are tax deductible through the Southern Documentary Fund
and can be processed electronically. If you haven’t seen the
production stills from the documentary shoot they are great shots!
Awareness of the seriousness of this pest has to spread faster
than the bug itself. This can only happen by reaching the
“masses” and getting the word out so trees and forests can be
saved.
Thanks for your support in any way it comes!
Will
David
Huff: david@back40films.com
From:
David Huff [mailto:david@back40films.com]
Sent: Wednesday,
December 05, 2007 12:12 PM
To: Will Blozan;
hee102@bellsouth.net
Subject: Will
Blozan (subject of Hemlock Documentary) is featured in The New
Yorker
Will
Blozan, the subject of our documentary The
Vanishing Hemlock, is featured in a fantastic article
in the December 10th issue of The
New Yorker magazine
which is on stands now.
To
donate to the documentary on Will, and his work to save the
hemlocks,click
here. To view production stills from our shoot
in the Smokies, and to see pictures of these amazing trees,click
here.
Thank
you for your support!
Executive
Producer/Director
Abstract from http://www.newyorker.com
:
Richard Preston, Letter from North Carolina, "A Death in the Forest," The New Yorker, December 10, 2007, p. 64
LETTER FROM NORTH CAROLINA about parasites attacking
eastern hemlocks. In 1951, an Asian insect known as the hemlock
woolly adelgid was discovered near a park in
Richmond
,
Virginia
, which contained imported evergreens. The adelgid is a tiny bug
similar to an aphid, and is parasitic to hemlocks. Describes the
life cycle of the bug and how it spreads. The female can have as
many as ninety thousand offspring in a year without
fertilization by a male. Tells about effects of infestation. The
adelgids were not an ecological concern until the late
nineteen-eighties, when a stand of hemlocks forty miles east of
Richmond
was found to be ninety per cent dead. Describes the trees
attributes and range of growth. Many of the trees are in
Great Smoky Mountains
National Park
, which covers half a million acres in
Tennessee
and
North Carolina
. The adelgids spread rapidly. Gives examples of other invasive
species threatening chestnut, ash, and sugar maple trees.
Describes how globalization and climate change affect the spread
of invasive species. Lists new states where the adelgids have
recently appeared. They could cause the hemlock to become
functionally extinct. By 2002, they had spread to the
Cataloochee
Valley
in the Great Smokies, which contains eighty per cent of the
worlds tallest eastern hemlocks. Tells about research into
species of beetles that are natural predators of adelgids. Bayer
makes an artificial nicotine insecticide, Imidacloprid, which is
injected into the soil and carried through a tree by the root
system, killing the feeding bugs. Securing funding and approval
to use Imidacloprid in the park was a slow and byzantine
process, during which many more trees died. Discusses the
conflicting interests and the manpower required to treat
infested trees. Writer goes with Will Blozan, an arborist, into
the
Cataloochee
Valley
. Most of the trees are dead. They climb Jim Branch No. 10, the
healthiest tree in the park. Describes effects of adelgids on
hemlock canopy life. Blozan has founded the Tsuga Search
Project, an effort to identify and measure the worlds largest
and tallest eastern hemlocks before they are gone.
