The white oak is a crucial part of the ecosystem in many parts of North America, providing food, shelter, and breeding grounds for a plethora of species, including several threatened or endangered ones, such as the Taylor's checkerspot butterfly.
Now, a newly formed working group has come together to protect this species in Southwest Washington state. According to The Nature Conservancy, white oak communities are among North America's most imperiled habitats. "These trees continue to be lost, depriving species such as the western grey squirrel of valuable habitat," the organization wrote in a report.
The group includes multiple state government agencies and nonprofits, all looking for ways to protect the white oak habitat.
"Very little is left" of the white oaks, Sarah Hamman, science director at the Ecostudies Institute, an Olympia-based nonprofit helping coordinate the working group, told The Columbian. "Without stewardship, they will be gone."
Over the years, oak communities have been cleared to make way for development. Simply planting new ones is not a direct solution, as mature oaks take hundreds of years to grow. In that time, many of the species that rely on them — ranging from fungi to woodland creatures — may not make it.
"Explaining this value can be difficult when people only see a tree," said Maddie Nolan, an assistant regional habitat program manager for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. "Nature is not tidy. It's messy. Trying to get people to let nature be this way, in general, is a huge challenge in our work."
The working group is coordinating with Indigenous communities, which long stewarded the white oak communities before the interference of settlers, to figure out the best way to move forward with protecting what is left.
Conservation efforts for other threatened tree species, such as the American chestnut, have centered on a three-pronged approach of "breeding, biotechnology, and biocontrol." Strategies have yet to be determined for the white oaks, but the fact that state agencies and nonprofits are working together to tackle the problem is reason to be encouraged.
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