People Are Stealing Birch Trees in the Midwest—Here's Why That's a Major Problem
Birch has been popular in interior design for a few years now, and you've probably seen it all over Pinterest: the pretty, papery-barked branches, which come in shades of white, gray, black, and more. But the home decor trend is actually causing a surprising amount of trouble, as reports that birch is being stolen from forests in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin surface.
"Birch theft has become the new trend in northwest Wisconsin," wrote Mike Richter, chief deputy of the Washburn County, Wisconsin Sheriff's Office, on the department's Facebook page. "Thefts are occurring on county and state forests as well as on private property."
County foresters in the states started noticing the thefts last fall, reports Twin Cities Pioneer Press. The so-called birch bandits seem to target younger (5-10 years old), smaller trees (think two inches in diameter), which leads foresters and law enforcement officers to believe they're being sold for decorative reasons.
The amount of stolen birch varies depending on the region, but Buck Pettingill, a Washburn County forester told Pioneer Press he counted about 1,800 missing trees in just one of many areas, which, "would be about 60 cords of birch when they got big. At $40 cord, that adds up ... It's stealing, plain and simple," Pettingill added. "And it's causing a lot of damage in the forest."
Though the counties do perform their own timber harvests (and even offer permits for trusted individuals to do their own small-scale harvesting legally), it's important to do it properly to maintain the trees so they can regenerate. When they're chopped down unexpectedly, the foresters are forced to begin that regeneration process again.
"It effects the regeneration of the forest, impacts on wildlife as the forest grows. There's a lot of indirect impacts," Robert Slater, Assistant Supervisor for the Cloquet Area Forestry in Duluth, Minnesota, tells CountryLiving.com. "The direct impacts are money out of pocket that the state has to spend to track people down to reforest the site to start back over. In the first year, there's a fair amount more work to do to make sure that a timber stand continues to regenerate after a past cutting. At least when we cut it and we take in some revenue, some of that revenue goes back to regeneration."
But birch thefts can have an even bigger impact on the community than that, says Slater. "A lot of the Midwest has School Trust Lands, and the money that is raised from a timber sale goes into that trust fund to help support schools ... so that's money out of the pockets of the school districts."
Officers are urging residents to call the police if they see suspicious activity (look for pickups and trailers filled with small saplings), and Dave Zebro, a Wisconsin conservation warden, said officers might even reach out to regional buyers to make sure they're sourcing them legitimately, reports Pioneer Press.
Currently, conservation officers are pursuing leads and cannot disclose information related to the investigation. However, if convicted, the suspects will face possible jail time, fines, or both-plus restitution costs for the timber cut.
(h/t: Twin Cities Pioneer Press)
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