Barking Up Wrong Tree : U.S. Rangers Try to Catch Those Who Cut Christmas Conifer in Forest

Forest Service Ranger William Shaw grinned as he slung a five-foot section of a Coulter pine tree onto his shoulder and heaved it into the back of his truck.

He wasn’t happy that the tree, really the top third of a 15-foot pine, had been hacked off by someone who wanted a free Christmas tree. Shaw was grinning because this time he had a suspect. And he knew where to find him.

People chop down trees in federal forests every Christmas. Often they get away. But on this recent afternoon, Shaw was certain he would find the vandal and make him pay for his crime.

The driver of a Caltrans truck traveling down the Angeles Crest Highway above La Canada had seen the tree being cut and noted the license number of the cutter’s vehicle. He also called Shaw, but by the time the ranger arrived, the suspects were gone and the cut portion of the tree was lying abandoned along the roadway under the shadows of 80-million-year-old Mt. Josephine.

“This is gonna be an expensive tree,” Shaw said of his first tree stealing case of the season.

The fine for cutting a tree in the forest is $100. “Then an additional fine of triple the tree’s value is assessed and it is assessed for the whole tree, not just the part that was cut off,” he said. “This tree has a value of $100, so the fine will be $300, and then add the $100 for the initial cut and you’ve got an expensive tree.”

Not to mention that you will not be able to keep the tree. He said cut trees that are confiscated are usually donated to convalescent hospitals and senior citizen homes.

When caught, most people tell rangers they thought the trees would be free. Shaw said later that he was able to contact the people who were in the car spotted by the Caltrans worker and that one person admitted cutting the Coulter pine.

The scraggly treetop Shaw found is what another ranger laughingly called a “Charlie Brown tree.”

“We don’t have many fir trees since we are at a lower elevation, but of the ones we do have, some of them reach 40 foot tall,” said Ranger Glenn Skaggs of the Forest Service’s Bear Divide Station in Canyon Country.

“And occasionally one will get topped by thieves because from the ground the tip of the tree looks good.

“When they get the scraggly tip of the tree down to ground level and realize it’s not as full as a groomed Christmas tree, they dump it. It’s like cutting the tail off of a dog. It just doesn’t look right,” he said.

“Still, we get folks taking trees every year,” said Steve Bear, resource officer at the Tujunga Ranger District office in Little Tujunga Canyon above Pacoima.

“We don’t get hundreds of people, we get dozens, at least those that we catch or find the stumps,” said Bear.

There are five ranger districts in Angeles National Forest, which covers 694,187 acres of land, from Mt. Baldy westward through Saugus to Los Padres National Forest boundary near Pyramid Lake.

About 30 people a year are caught cutting trees in the Angeles National Forest, according to Forest Service spokeswoman Dianne Cahir.

Shaw said the problem is bigger than the numbers “because the numbers just represent those that we manage to catch. More get away.”

“Our trees are for wildlife habitats, recreation and erosion control, which makes them much more valuable than for the temporary use as Christmas trees. Not to mention it takes a long time to grow a tree,” said Bear.

In Bear’s district, there are sections of the forest called “tree plantations,” where the Forest Service has planted a variety of indigenous trees, including Douglas fir, lodge, white and sugar pine. More than 100 of such plantations cover several thousand acres of forest--and they too are violated by ax-wielding Christmas tree hunters.

After Christmas, the Forest Service sometimes encounters an entirely different tree problem. Cahir said a lot of well-meaning people call every year saying they bought living trees and want to donate them to the Forest Service.

Some people even plant their living Christmas trees in the woods, and rangers usually find about 10 to 20 non-native trees each year after the holidays. Many such trees are ornamental, such as Colorado spruce, and do not adapt to Southern California’s soil and weather conditions.

“We notice them because they are dead,” Shaw said. “I find trees planted in developed areas. Some people come back and actually water their trees. The vast majority, however, die. The survival rate is low. Most of the trees are non-native.”

And, as foreign flora, they are not welcome in the region’s mountains. “By law,” said Cahir, “we cannot introduce species into the forest that are not native to the area.”