The Tree Rustlers

In McHenry, Ill., a gentleman farmer reported that at least four had been stolen. A Monticello, Ill., landowner found that 20 had been taken from her property overnight. In Columbus, Ohio, citizens discovered that five were missing from a city park. The objects that are becoming increasingly attractive to Midwestern thieves are not the underworld's usual stock in trade. They are black walnut trees, which are disappearing at an alarming rate from the north-central forests of the U.S., where most of them grow. In many places where the best of the giant shade trees once stood, beautifying landscapes in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, there are now only ugly stumps.

The lustrous, easily worked hardwood of black walnut trees is prized by furniture manufacturers the world over, mainly because it can be made into a thin veneer to cover less expensive woods. But the supply is short. Every year woodsmen in the U.S. cut about 11 million more board feet than mature in state and commercial nurseries. As a result, logs from a large, top-quality black walnut tree can fetch as much as $15,000 nowadays--obviously well worth a midnight foray by tree rustlers.

The wily culprits cruise around wooded areas in cars (one gang used an airplane) during daylight hours to spot their victims, then strike at night. Armed with chain saws silenced with auto mufflers, they have to move too quickly to bother with the valuable branches (which are used for furniture legs and braces) or roots (which are made into gunstocks). All they want are the trunks, which they winch onto a truck and sell to sawmills to be processed for veneer.

Sometimes the thieves will even approach a farmer and offer to cut his deadwood. Then, says Craig Beek, head of Iowa's Bureau of Criminal Investigation, "Zippo, like a flash, they'll take your walnut trees too." Another ploy is to approach the landowner and ask to buy the trees, promising payment when they are sold to mills. The cutters then disappear with the logs, and the farmer never sees them again.

James Vavra, an Illinois game warden, has set up a makeshift defense against the black walnut marketeers. He has organized farmers to be on the lookout for trucks with winches on private property, and to report strange nocturnal sounds to the local sheriff--especially the mmmbrrp of a muffled buzz saw. Last month the system helped catch three thieves in Illinois' De Kalb County. They are now awaiting trial on charges of grand theft, criminal damage to property and criminal trespass.

Despite alert farmers, the tree thieves are still reaping a rich harvest. Mill owners are too happy to see black walnut logs to ask embarrassing questions, and new state laws designed to reduce tree rustling are proving hard to enforce. Thieves at work near Monroe, Iowa, added insult to injury. Spotting a black walnut tree near a house, they noticed that the residents were not at home. In felling the towering tree, however, they sent it crashing onto the house, causing $2,000 in damage. Undaunted, they cut off the top of the tree, took the trunk and left the mess.

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