While parks are battling an aphid-like insect that is devastating Eastern hemlock stands, Fire Island National Seashore announced last week that cutting down infested trees has significantly diminished its population of invasive southern pine beetles, which can attack and kill pine trees in two to four months.

On February 3, Fire Island National Seashore Superintendent Chris Soller and Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society President Bob LaRosa signed a new five-year partnership agreement. The agreement renews the Society's commitment to work collaboratively with the National Park Service to provide public programming and assist with preservation efforts at the lighthouse.

Natural processes, specifically the ebb and flow of the Atlantic Ocean, should be allowed to continue at Fire Island National Seashore, where the National Park Service is willing to let a breach in the Otis Pike Fire Island High Dunes Wilderness open and close as the waves dictate.