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by Michael
Mello
Modesto Bee - May 23, 2002
YOSEMITE -- Visitors are being asked to wash soil from their shoes, bikes,
automobiles and pets' paws before entering Yosemite National Park.
Park officials
are asking for the public's help in keeping the sudden oak death fungus, which
has destroyed trees in other parts of Northern California, from spreading
to Yosemite.
The National
Park Service has announced a quarantine on "host materials" -- such
as wood pieces or soil -- from 10 greater Bay Area counties where trees have
been infected with the disease.
A relative of
the organism linked to the Irish potato blight, the fungus is known as Phytophthora
ramorum -- "infector of twigs."
It first showed
up in Marin County in the mid-1990s, causing oaks to turn brown and die. There
is no treatment for the fungus, which kills live oaks, black oaks, maples,
azaleas, bay laurel, buckeye and tanoak.
Those trees populate
approximately one-quarter of Yosemite's forest areas and two-thirds of the
park's developed areas. Officials are asking people from Bay Area counties
not to bring firewood, soil or plants into Yosemite. They also are asking
visitors to wash off dirt from elsewhere before entering the park.
The quarantine
is voluntary, and rangers will not vigorously enforce it, park spokeswoman
Deb Schweizer said. Park officials believe visitors will readily comply.
"We're going
to be putting signs at the entrance stations and campgrounds," she said.
Materials from
the counties of Alameda, Marin, Mendocino, Monterey, Napa, San Mateo, Santa
Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano and Sonoma are affected by the quarantine, as well
as Curry County just over the state line in Oregon.
"We're
looking at people who are camping or might be bringing their own firewood
into the park," Schweizer said. " We're also concerned about people
who take their vehicles onto the dirt roads where they live and then come
into the park with those same tires.
"The counties
in question have some wonderful biking trails and areas to recreate. They're
also likely to be people who come up to Yosemite."
Visitors also are asked to report any symptoms of sudden death -- blackened leaves and lesions on trees that appear red and "bleeding" -- to park authorities.
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