f nature. Upon further investigation, I was informed that it was the fir trees, Frasier fir to be specific, that lined the mountainsides with their decaying remains. My initial reaction was to curse a common predator of our coniferous species present at higher elevations, acid rain. To my surprise though, I later read that it wasn’t the acid precipitation claiming the lives of the magnificent firs, it was the balsam woolly adelgid. An insect less than 2mm long was responsible for the demise of hundreds of old-growth Frasier firs. At that moment I felt the thirst for knowledge and I have now quenched that thirst through the writing of this paper....
