Where Have All the Oak Trees Gone?
One of the things people love most about Northern California is the trees. Redwood, eucalyptus, oak…but that last could be seen no more in this region, due to a disease nobody has a name for. It’s called Sudden Oak Death, popularly known as SOD, and because it doesn’t kill a cash crop like grape vines, not much is being done about it outside the academic community. Sudden oak death affects tanoaks, coast live oaks, and black oaks. It first appeared in Marin County, California in 1995 on a tanoak. Since then it has spread as far north as Humboldt County and as far south as Monterey. Three counties have epidemic levels of oak mortality — Marin, Santa Cruz and Monterey. The spread of the disease is so epidemic in Marin County that a state of emergency was declared in 2000. The county received $3 million from the state to help them fight the epidemic, which includes not only the dead trees but the threat of wildfires caused by the increasing amount of deadwood. The widespread death of t
