We have lost a beloved sentinel in our park. This week she finally fell down. The park will remove her so the fire road will be passable.We know she was over 300 years old in 1995 but there were many small rings in the branch that we could not accurately count so, realistically, she was at least 350 years old, which is unusual for oaks in our area, mostly because any that were easy to access were cut down for firewood to fuel everything. Sadly, her offspring trees are also suffering major branch losses across the fire road. This drought has been really tough on the trees, that’s for sure.
—Rosi Dagit, Sr. Biologist, RCDSMM