Climbing trees

I've been climbing trees for the past ten years. I'm now a Supervisor Treeclimber for the US Dept. of Agriculture. I'm working on the Asian Longhorned Beetle Eradication Program.

Your like the INS for beetles!

Yeah, pretty much. When we find an infested tree, all host trees within 1/8 to 1/4 mile radius are removed, depending on severity of infestation. Trees further out are treated by soil or trunk injection to break the beetles' reproducion cycle. We inspect trees up to 1 1/2 mile radius from all infested trees.
At this time we have somewhere around 40 sq miles of trees to inspect. We're working on geting more contract climbers from Dave Tree Co, we'll have 6 more starting June 16 for a total of 18 climbers. There is another Supervisory Treeclimber besides myself. We supervise 3 other USDA treeclimbers and all the contract & other govt agency climbers. We're working on getting the US Forest Service Smokejumpers out here again in their off season. I'm in charge of all climbing & inspections in the Staten Island Quarantine Zone and the other Supervisor has the New Jersey Quarantine Zone.

We did some Aerial Rescue training today for all the climbers and I also set up a 300 ft. zipline while waiting for everyone. I set it from the top of an oak to the trunk of another oak about 225+ ft away. A went twice and a few others tried.

This was my first trip down the line. I went alot faster the second time. A branch was in the way near the bottom, so we trimmed it a lilttle.

Frankie tanking a ride on the zipline. I taught this guy how to climb last fall, he's doing great now.

Wyatt's turn. I took the last ride down after I filmed this.