# Timber Thieves



## 2dogs (Dec 30, 2007)

Here is a link to a Yahoo atricle. I'll post my comment when I get the chance. 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071230/ap_on_bi_ge/stealing_trees


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## techdave (Dec 31, 2007)

*hang em high.*

Nuff said about those sleazy timbr thieves!


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## treejunkie13 (Dec 31, 2007)

must have been some high quality Oak, can't even give that stuff away around here, terrible scale, weighs in good for the chip mill though.
We've got Veneer Cherry here and someone greedy is always getting caught coonin' some logs.
The latest was of 3 dudes, supporting habits, caught on motion camera. (Busted)


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## Billy_Bob (Dec 31, 2007)

In Oregon there are several laws for this. Basically you can be stopped while transporting wood or forest products and you had better have a bill of sale or a permit. I have been stopped before, but I had a permit. Here are the laws...

Oregon Revised Statutes...
164.813 Unlawful cutting and transport of special forest products.
164.825 Cutting and transport of coniferous trees without permit or bill of sale.
164.845 Arrest, summons for cutting or transport of trees or special forest products; effect of failure to appear.
164.855 Seizure of trees or special forest products cut or transported in violation of ORS 164.813 or 164.825.

Note: Various laws pertain to the transportation of; hay, bear grass, boughs, branches, ferns, bark and needles of the Pacific yew, Cascara bark, Cedar salvage, evergreen foliage and shrubs, ornamental trees and shrubs, round or split posts, poles, pickets, stakes or rails, shakeboards, shake-bolts, shingle bolts, mushrooms, and forest plant parts used in floral arrangements and decorations.


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## Spotted Owl (Dec 31, 2007)

Billy_Bob said:


> In Oregon there are several laws for this. Basically you can be stopped while transporting wood or forest products and you had better have a bill of sale or a permit. I have been stopped before, but I had a permit. Here are the laws...
> 
> Oregon Revised Statutes...
> 164.813 Unlawful cutting and transport of special forest products.
> ...




In Oregon they may have all these laws and such. However the authorities don't seem to care much about it when the average Joe tries to report thievery.

In Oregon you can turn someone in and nothing will happen. Out hunting 5+ yrs back, after passing 6 moving fast down the mtn we stumbled on to 4 self loaders working on a sunday unloading on a deck, cutting the butt paint and brands off and reloading. Photos and video tape plate numbers and individual discriptions didn't seem interesting enough to OSP. The timber holder did want them though. We were told that if anything did happen we would be called to testify in court. Nothing so far.

More than one time have we came across crews falling and loading as they go. Never been on a crew that hauls out as soon as they have a truck load down. Then start cutting again as soon as the truck leaves and the next is backing in. On Sunday again. Nobody around this area works on sundays unless it runs into fire closure season. Certainly no in late fall and winter.

Timber theives should be strung up by their toe nails and, uh well you know. I wish it seemed to be more of a concern for the authorities, cause sometimes you don't know who the timber holder is so you can't get ahold of them. Under the radar stealing doesn't seem to be something anyone really cares about, except like anything else the ones effected do care but get no place because the authorities are "stretched to thin and may not get to it as fast as you would like" quote from OSP dispatch center when called to report.


Owl


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## joesawer (Dec 31, 2007)

This is amazing to me. I have spent my most of my life in fear of cutting across property lines. To me anyone who intentionally steals timber should be strung up or at least fined several times what the timber was worth.


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## RPM (Dec 31, 2007)

Its the same in BC, basically you have to catch someone with the saw in the log running. Even then if you don't have the police handy to make an arrest its pretty much a mute point. The provincial Forest Service people don't carry guns so they don't make arrests and where are you going to find a cop way back in the bush. Cedar shake blocks are the biggest thing thieved around here as you can hide them in the back of a truck with a canopy and they bring about $1000/cord for premium wood. They usually make there way down into the Fraser Valley into some gippo shake mill run by certain peoples who turn a blind eye to where the wood comes from.....


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## RPM (Dec 31, 2007)

Heres the next CSI show - who dunit Timber killing....DNA finger printing your timber.


www.bio.net/bionet/mm/ag-forst/1998-July/010427.html


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## clearance (Dec 31, 2007)

RPM said:


> Its the same in BC, basically you have to catch someone with the saw in the log running. Even then if you don't have the police handy to make an arrest its pretty much a mute point. The provincial Forest Service people don't carry guns so they don't make arrests and where are you going to find a cop way back in the bush. Cedar shake blocks are the biggest thing thieved around here as you can hide them in the back of a truck with a canopy and they bring about $1000/cord for premium wood. They usually make there way down into the Fraser Valley into some gippo shake mill run by certain peoples who turn a blind eye to where the wood comes from.....



You got 'er. Also people are stealing maple wood, small pieces that they can even throw into car and sell. Music wood they call it. I have had to deal with maples that were felled beside a transmission line, hung up in other trees, fallers not, crackheads yes.


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## BC_Logger (Dec 31, 2007)

RPM said:


> Its the same in BC, basically you have to catch someone with the saw in the log running. Even then if you don't have the police handy to make an arrest its pretty much a mute point. The provincial Forest Service people don't carry guns so they don't make arrests and where are you going to find a cop way back in the bush. Cedar shake blocks are the biggest thing thieved around here as you can hide them in the back of a truck with a canopy and they bring about $1000/cord for premium wood. They usually make there way down into the Fraser Valley into some gippo shake mill run by certain peoples who turn a blind eye to where the wood comes from.....



cedar is in such high demand here in the lowermainland with all the new housing starts 

most of the new houses have some sort of cedar trim work weather that be shakes , siding ot tung and grove soffit $$$$$


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## hanniedog (Dec 31, 2007)

Treat them just like animal poochers. Confiscate every piece of equipment they have, trucks, saws and fine them on top of that.


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## treejunkie13 (Jan 1, 2008)

clearance said:


> Also people are stealing maple wood, small pieces that they can even throw into car and sell. Music wood they call it.



I must ask what type of Maple. I am currently falling for a mill that does a little product for Gibson guitar necks. Smaller odd logs with crap scale, nickel's and dimes, not worth the times.


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## slowp (Jan 1, 2008)

I think it is maple with a showy nice grain...they call it curly maple. Makes for a real pretty guitar. It is actually our native maple, Big Leaf? My brain is failing on that one, but has that grain to it. I looked at some property and the guy showing it noticed maples that he planned to sell were cut, He tracked down the thief, who lived next door and had an ok to cut "firewood" and scared him with the thought of not selling the land, but putting an old trailer in and renting it to tweakers. Guess he scared the guy good, but didn't want to get the law involved.


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## booboo (Jan 1, 2008)

There was a crew in our area that hit a bunch of absentee landowners a few years ago. They were using fake names, fake business names, forged insurance certs, and cell phones. They were basically cruising back roads looking for hard maple stands then using tax records to see if the owners were local. All business was done by PO Box, public fax machines, and cell phones. If things got too hot, they just dumped the cells and got new ones.

It took several years but NY DEC investigators convinced a local district attorney that it was good larceny case. 6 or 8 people got indicted on roughly 100 felony and misdemeanor counts and I think 4 of them got jail time. The head guy got several years in state prison. Restitution was way too low, about $75,000 between the landowners but the records were so bad that no one could tell how much they actually cut. I've heard estimates of $250,000 in the year or so that they were operating.

This is way too common and I thought the penalties were way too low. They all should have gotten state time. They knew exactly what they were doing.

     

At least more and more of these are being handled criminally here. The law just changed to allow a judge to award triple damages in a criminal case, it's been triple damages for civil cases for a while. If you walked into 7-11 and took $5,000 out of the safe, you'd go to jail. What's the difference between that and walking onto someone's woodlot and taking $5,000 worth of timber?


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## RPM (Jan 1, 2008)

treejunkie13 said:


> I must ask what type of Maple. I am currently falling for a mill that does a little product for Gibson guitar necks. Smaller odd logs with crap scale, nickel's and dimes, not worth the times.



If Clearance is talking about Maple on Vancouver Island / inside coast area / Fraser Valley of BC - its Big Leaf Maple (_(Acer macrophyllum)_ not much else around here that you could make music wood out of (hardwoods anyway). I've got a couple of slabs that have all sorts of figure - flame, curly, fiddle. I think you'd have to look through a lot of trees to find exceptional stuff as it seems to grow quite fast.


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## olyman (Jan 1, 2008)

thieves---anyone heard of justice roy bean--from texas way years ago??? seems we need more of it in NORTH america!!!!!!!!!!!!! as politicians,lawyers,and crooked cops--could care less about little ole you and me--------


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## Mark Currie (Jan 3, 2008)

It's similar around here as well, but mostly just on a log by log basis. They'll go in and cut veneer birdseye maple logs and haul it to 1 tons via ATV's. My father spots trucks going quite a bit (he hauls in a pretty remote are of the province) and calls the rangers about it. They've made some arrests, but like someone else said, they have to be caught red-handed, otherwise, nothing can (or at least is) done about it. A few guys got off a couple of years ago, because they were videotaped in the act.. the only problem was, they were videotaped without their permission!?! I don't know how that works. Are woodlot owners expected to set up cameras near every valuable tree on their property and post a sign stating that there's a camera nearby? Hmm.. easy way to spot the nice wood anyway.. just look for the signs, get rid of the cameras and cut away.

My grandfather caught someone a while back, stealing some logs from him. He arrived at a log pile and spotted drag marks up the dirt road. He followed the marks right into a driveway where the log was. The guy hooked a chain onto it and dragged it away with his car.. haha..


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## monkeywood (Jan 8, 2008)

*Take a hint from the gun grabbers.*

Clearly chainsaws cause timber theft. If we make it illegal for people to own chainsaws timber theft will stop. Right?

Husky 3120 and the Stihl 088 are the thiefs saws of choice. 

Ban the big ones.

Wild Thingy is the saturday night special of chainsaws. A throw away saw, file the serial number off. Wolla.

Don't forget the crooked, no good, shifty looking portable sawmill crowd. Who needs a portable sawmill???



Background checks for all saw purchases. Shut down the AS loophole. 

What will be the slick three letter ackronym for the Govt agency to regulate saws?


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## joesawer (Jan 8, 2008)

monkeywood said:


> Clearly chainsaws cause timber theft. If we make it illegal for people to own chainsaws timber theft will stop. Right?
> 
> Husky 3120 and the Stihl 088 are the thiefs saws of choice.
> 
> ...



SAP Saw Abatement Program


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## zopi (Jan 8, 2008)

Spotted Owl said:


> Timber theives should be strung up by their toe nails and, uh well you know.
> 
> Owl



Have their Wood cut? 



hanniedog said:


> Treat them just like animal poochers. Confiscate every piece of equipment they have, trucks, saws and fine them on top of that.




and sell it dirt cheep to joes like us?opcorn:  



yah...usaed to be a big problem down in TN...do not know if it still is.


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## aquan8tor (Jan 11, 2008)

Its a problem in VA. My mom's family has a place in Allegheny Co. that I've found cherry, oak, and walnut stumps that noone in the family cut for camn sure. I pretty much know who is responsible; he works at the local mill. I'd say his name here, but I'd get sued. He knows I know, and I travel the place with my .44 mag. holstered and loaded all the time. With a cell phone. Mad as I get, it isn't worth killing anyone over. A little felony jail sentence would be vengeance enough. I just wish there were a way to get the trees back. My uncle is a PhD forester, but isn't involved with the property anymore. I'm totally into sustainable select logging of a few trees here and there to pay for upkeep of the property, but it seems like this bastard is picking all the valuable trees before I get there, not to mention the dead, firewood trees. ARRGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! M(&%ERFU(*&CG THIEVES I TELL YOU. The way I was brought up, you don't steal.


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## epicklein22 (Jan 11, 2008)

aquan8tor said:


> Its a problem in VA. My mom's family has a place in Allegheny Co. that I've found cherry, oak, and walnut stumps that noone in the family cut for camn sure. I pretty much know who is responsible; he works at the local mill. I'd say his name here, but I'd get sued. He knows I know, and I travel the place with my .44 mag. holstered and loaded all the time. With a cell phone. Mad as I get, it isn't worth killing anyone over. A little felony jail sentence would be vengeance enough. I just wish there were a way to get the trees back. My uncle is a PhD forester, but isn't involved with the property anymore. I'm totally into sustainable select logging of a few trees here and there to pay for upkeep of the property, but it seems like this bastard is picking all the valuable trees before I get there, not to mention the dead, firewood trees. ARRGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! M(&%ERFU(*&CG THIEVES I TELL YOU. The way I was brought up, you don't steal.



That is a hard pill to swallow. The woods behind my house is owned by a local farmer but I have spent my whole life back there. One day I went back into the woods to see the largest tree gone!! It was a 4 or 5 foot white oak. It was so beautiful, just perfect. I was really mad because it was obvious the land owner next to this property did it. I told the farmer and he didn't even know. He couldn't pin it on the landowner next door, so the guy got away scotch free. I hope the governments get their act together and puts steep penalties on these criminals. We need to respect each other and nature.:chainsawguy:


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