dan Swanson
news | press

In its battle against oak wilt, Catron Camp and Retreat Center in Nebraska City has it made in the shade.

The tree malady, which has claimed dozens of 150-year-old trees at Wildwood Park in Nebraska City, threatened to leave most of the Girl Scout campgrounds barren.

With the completion of the Laurine Kimmel Lodge a decade ago, camp director Deb Salansky said, it became increasingly evident that the trees were dying.

An urgent replanting program began around the new lodge, but Salansky knew there was no way to keep pace as signs of the wilt began showing up in hundreds of trees.

She contacted Nebraska City tree expert Brad Maybee, who encouraged the camp to give the trees another season to rebound. Some were removed and others painted with a question mark.

After consulting with foresters from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the Green Space stewardship project, Camp Catron decided to vigorously trim out the dying branches.

“I guess it was a gamble, a big gamble, because that’s all we could afford,” Salansky said.

One section of the camp was trimmed in each of the last three years, with only the densely wooded tent area called Indian Village remaining for trimming this year.

As Salansky turns over the reins of the camp this year to Rob Anderson, she is convinced the trimming program has worked.

With lively budding throughout the camp this spring, Salansky said she realizes the trees will eventually die, but it won’t be on her watch.

“This is what it should look like. This is what it has looked like for years and years,” she said of the burr oaks.

She said trimming the trees is “moderately” expensive, but said it’s cheaper than cutting a tree down. A whole section can be trimmed for the cost of removing just two trees, she said.

Salansky, camp director since 1999, said the camp has tried to plant a young native species tree for each legacy tree that remains to ensure a continuous forest.

Camp Catron has about 12,000 visitors per year, including 6,000 Girl Scouts.

Anderson, a former associate director at the Cedar Points Biological Station, said he hopes to continue to tree stewardship program.

He has worked eight years with the general biology labs at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He has worked to facilitate research projects and organized student opportunities to work as field biologists.