DNA Testing and Walnut

Here's a link to the story  *LINK*

Christopher Fitch @ Memphis

>


Stolen tree suspects nailed

Re: Here's a link to the story

William R. Duffield on the Cohansey

>So, he paid the owner only three times the market value of the lumber. Statisitcally, if he only gets caught for less than a third of the trees he murders, he still makes out financially. He should have his license revoked and be thrown in jail. Also, he should be made to reimburse the owner for the replacement cost of the living tree, which I suspect would be a lot more than three times the value of the lumber. Do you think if he had cut the tree for firewood, he would have had to pay less?

I'm glad he was caught, even if his punishment was not in proportion to the crime.

Re: Here's a link to the story

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>In Austin we value large shade trees at about $10,000, based on energy costs and how much a good one saves over the life of the tree.

Pam

Re: That's still not enough

William R. Duffield on the Cohansey

>Assigning a single usage dollar value to a yard tree still doesn't come close to measuring its true value, but this discussion should help us become more aware of the costs of removing a tree. Even if we add the shade value (in BTUs) and the lumber value, and the value of what is left for bowl turning blanks, and firewood, and weed supressing mulch, we miss a lot.

Some other examples to which a dollar value to society might be assigned: Trees filter a lot of polution out of the air. In noisy urban environments, they are effective sound dampeners. Trees sequester carbon dioxide from the air, somewhat mitigating the effects of global warming.

In many cases, there are also intangible values: What about the old rope swing that you played on as a child, and that the grandchildren enjoy so much every time they come over? Where are your song birds going to find shelter? Where are the squirrels, that you get so much enjoyment from watching steal bird food from your feeders, going to live? Where are the squirrels going to find the walnuts that they eat and use so effectively for their reforestation projects? How much extra time are you going to have to spend mowing that newly sunny patch of grass? Where are you going to set up your BBQ grill and lawn chairs?

Please note that I am not a "tree hugger". My position is far from advocating that we should never cut down a tree. They have a natural life span, and in many cases it is better to cut them down at maturity and replace them with stronger, younger trees, than to let them get old and rot out and fall on our houses or our vehicles or across our utility lines and roads. Also, many woodworkers talk about the "second life" of a tree in terms of the fine things that are built from it, and I'm all for that. However, it might be useful to consider the potential for "grief," "anguish," "suffering, " etc., caused by knowing that the stolen lumber, that you and your GITs were planning to turn into family heirlooms or toys for tots, had ended up instead as board room or office paneling or campfire of someone like Bernie Ebbers or Slobodan Milosevic or John Ashcroft or Kenneth Lay or Edward Kennedy or Saddam Hussein or Martha Stewart or Dennis Kozlowski or Colin Powell or Osama bin Laden, etc. Note that this is not a list of people who I think wear black hats. (In fact I think some of them wear white hats, but I'm not about to say which on this forum.) I am sure each of us has strong feelings, one way or another, about at least one of them. The point here is that if someone steals a tree for which you have feelings from you, you lose control of the use to which that tree will be put, and paying you for its lumber or other dollar value is not just and fair compensation.

Re: That's still not enough

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>No question; although much of what you say can be applied to any theft. I was just commenting that the price the thief had to pay was way, way too low.

Pam

I am thinking we touched a nerve here

Tom Sontag - St. Louis

>I agree 100% with everything you say Wm. It burns me too. I think murdering a living thing which belongs to someone else is much more like killing their pet than stealing their car. And the law is not harsh enough for harming others' pets either. It is much more than just an economic taking.

Re: Value of a living tree

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>William, I hope you might consider writing some of these comments as a free standing piece and post it to the woodturning forum. All too often I am bothered by folks who see the value of a tree only in terms of how many burls can be found on it or bowls that can be cut from it. I think your comments are a good way to widen all wood users perspective, particularly with respect to those who obtain their own wood in an urban or suburban environment.

Re: Value of a living tree

William R. Duffield on the Cohansey

>I hadn't thought about it that way. It's a good idea to reinforce these ideals, even though my impression is that, by and large, most of the WC turners are environmentally conscientious.

I know that in this part of the world, and even out there in Silicon Valley, there is potentially more than enough quality turning stock to keep every turner busy for several lifetimes, that ends up in the chipper or in fireplaces, or worse, in landfills.

As an aside, due to your California air quality regulations, it is even more difficult to burn wood than here, which removes a lot of your competion for turning stock (but it doesn't seem to keep HUMVs off the roads anywhere, and it doesn't keep any of our governments from investing enough in our transporation systems to keep the freeways from turning into smog belching, time wasting parking lots, when they are needed the most).

Back to turning stock: I wish I had the opportunity to turn a hundredth of the wood I could find for free or for the price of firewood. Really, as should be obvious to any turner, the price is paying attention to the weather reports, talking to the tree surgeons, the architects, the power company and road and building construction foremen, the sanitary engineers at the land fills, and carrying a chainsaw, a gallon of Anchorseal, and maybe a ramp and a comealong around in your pickup truck. No trees need to be cut specifically for turning stock -- enough bad things happen to trees accidentally, or because they otherwise happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Most of the aforementioned people who can put us onto useful wood, whether for turning, for other small craft projects, or even for parts for boats, are more than glad to help us prevent the wasting of these resources. If you end up with more than you could otherwise use, the solution is easy. As a volunteer friend of mine on the Meerwald puts it, "Give yourself away". Give some of your creations to the people who helped you save standing trees, to your favorite charity, or to their favorite charity. It doesn't have to be the best or most innovative work you do, or made from the best pieces of wood. They will appreciate it, whether it is for soup, or art.

Another way to look at it: Anybody who turns or otherwise works wood as an avocation knows that they are not seriously impacting the supply or the price of mulch and compost. You know you make that stuff a whole lot more efficiently than even the perfectly tuned and maintained chipper :^) Take your shavings and spread them under a tree. The tree will thank you for them.

Murdering!?...It's a TREE!

Todd Hughes

>Hey folks the guy didn't kill some kid or even the family Dog but cut down a TREE ! To hear this described as "Murdering" It, coming from wood workers I have to say is pretty strange. Unless you make a habit of using driftwood or trees that die a natural death for your work you are working with a material that came from a live tree that was cut down,["murdered"]. Of course i think this tree cutter was wrong and I am glad he got caught though with the huge back log and waiting list of DNA to be checked in criminal cases that involves the "murdering" of humans I have to wonder about propriety of taking the time and resources to check the DNA of a cut down tree.Remember we don't know the entire story either maybe these trees were right on the property line and were harves....opps "Murdered" by mistake? these things do happen.I think if he paid 3 times the worth of the wood that sounds pretty fair to me.Guess the tree owners thought so too since he accepted it. Is a dangerous path to go down when you try to put a dollor value on sentiment or what could have been,[even though nothing that I read in the story seemed to say that the owner was very sentimentaly attached to these wood lot trees.] Where do you draw the line? If I back into a 78 Pinto do I have to pay more because the guys grandfather gave it to him and he is the original owner?

It's a Tree, there plenty of them and more are being made everyday, Geez.......Todd , who is hoping sombody steals that huge Oak tree out front or just the big branch befor it falls on his roof

Re: Value of a living tree

Todd O. Cronkhite Native of Maine

>gotta jump in and let you know that I agree with you William. cutting down a tree JUST BECAUSE it has a desirable thing such as a burl, or the bark pattern shows that it might be quilted is plain wrong in my book. Enough tress come down eother naturally, or because they stand in the way of "progress" as it is with wontingly cutting them down just for the pretty wood that they contain. While I enjoy woodworking I cannot stand to see wood and trees wasted. You made many fine points in you're well written response, and I agree with you 100%. I just wanted you to know that you're not alone.

Todd O.

Re: Cannon Fodder

William R. Duffield on the Cohansey

>Sure, if they're just woodlot trees, mow 'em down and write a check. Just make sure the check covers replanting, and flood control, and other documented, measureable effects on our present and future well being.

However, if the tree were stolen from someone's homestead, or from public parks, then the emotional damage to those who loved and appreciated the tree and the environment it helped foster, and to whom that tree provided generations of comfort, can be as great as that suffered by the unjustified, untimely death of a beloved dog, and to some people perhaps even more than the statistical body counts reported by the media in one patriotically justified foreign war after another.

How would one value a Pinto? By the same standards as any other mass produced, industrial product, I think. I suspect you would hope to resell a revered old piece of iron and wood that you got at a bargain from someone who did not love it, for more than the original Stanley or Disston catalog price. The reverence accrued to a garbage truck or a taxi cab, or an untuned #5 1/4 with a hang hole, used only by high school shop students who grew up to be accountants who subsequently decided that all the high school shops should be shut down for economic reasons, would of course be significantly depreciated.

If market value were the only criterion, we could replace all our judges with accountants. (Of course, we could replace all our lawyers with accountants, too :^) However, I think doing away with the Supreme Court because the OMB or the GAO could do their job much more objectively would be an exercise in futility, to say the least.

Maybe my only value is in the sum of the number of Big Macs i convert into obesity, and the number of Disney movie tickets during which i suspend disbelief, and the number of cell phone air minutes i consume while increasing the risk to the others sharing the roads with me, and the number of gallons of galoline I contribute to global warming, ad infinitum, as measured in Yankee Dollars in the course of my lifetime?

Re: Cannon Fodder

Greg Sloop

>This doesn't exactly apply to your example, but in a tort case, the purpose of the award is to make it as if it (the tort or injury) had never happened.

For your 78 Pinto, that's a pretty easy job. Sure, the new one might be missing some sentimental value, and frankly, you're entitled to it. (It's just hard to quantify in a way a jury or judge might be able to grasp in a concrete way.)

However for a 60 year old tree (I didn't read the article, just spouting) the "replacement" cost for the tree is *very* large. In practical terms, it would be nearly impossible to get an identical tree and move it into the identical place etc. Even if you could, the costs would be incredibly large - much larger than the cost of the wood itself.

Finally, the sentimental value of that tree would be much more tangible and the theft of the tree would more easily sway someone figuring damages.

So, heck yes, that tree was worth a dang lot, even if you only calculate the real cold calculated damages.

Cheers,

Greg

Re: Cannon Fodder

Todd Hughes

>I am no lawyer but I don't quite buy it that..."in a tort case the purpose of the award is to make it as if it..[the injury] never happened..." Last year when a old drunk pulled out in front of me wrecking my older but low milage truck ,[which I was sentimental about too] I was given compensation as to what the so called Blue Book value was.Not even what a simular desirable truck would cost as I bought a simular truck and it cost me well over twice what I got and for sure I didn't get 3 times it's worth.Was explained to me right fast that no way would my truck be repaired to what it was like befor the accident but instead would be junked even though it was not my fault.

Actually I think it was pretty easy to establish the true vaule of this guys trees as apparently they were sold on the open market which gave you the thier vaule and when it was tripled I think the fellow probably made out pretty good,[bet he thought so to and that was why he accepted it!].I would consider myself pretty lucky if I got 3 times what my truck would of sold for...Todd

Hear him!

Don Thompson, Cutler Ridge, South of Miami FL

>Good points. We are doing some significant re-landscaping on my property, and I have had to be dragged along to agree with some of the process. My wife keeps telling me that we can just replant such-and-such, but I have argued that we cannot just replace a 25-year old tree - the new one will not be the same for 25 years, at which time I will be 75. Then how long will I be able to enjoy it?

OT: Come-along hookup

Don Thompson, Cutler Ridge, South of Miami FL

>To what point on your pickup would you attach the come-along to drag a log into it?

I am a tree hugger and proud of it!

steve antonucci

>I have a buddy who maintains a property in upstate NY with Forestry Management. He gets cheap taxes, they tell him what stays and goes. About six years ago, he had some loggers pull the same stunt with a 125 year old cherry tree that hadn't been "marked for death". Seems they knew that the "value" of this tree was more (to them) horizontal than vertical. He caught them and made them leave the log (which I cut three years later into many, many turning blanks), but the damage was done.

Fast forward to last December,when my MIL lost another large cherry tree in an ice storm. I was told that this was her grandfathers tree, where he would climb up it and shake the cherries down to make wine. I meant something more to her. After limbing it (for three days), I needed to wait to cut the main trunk (until the ground firmed up). I was there last weekend, and guess what? The tree has all new growth coming from the main trunk, which is at 45 degrees to the ground. It is still alive, and I am conflicted between cutting it and leaving it be until a natural end. (If you've ever seen a redwood forest, you would know that this is somewhat common. Redwood trunks will sprout new trees when they fall, as the trunks become the roots when the hit the ground.)

What would the world be like if we killed things that were alive for monetary benefit? Sure, we need wood for a variety of daily functions, but as it has been pointed out, there are so many ways trees are cut, fallen during storms, etc. that to hear of someone willfully destroying something like this tree, makes me livid.

I say that this is more akin to Grand Theft than how it was "prosecuted". The sawyer is lucky that it wasn't my tree, because that's how I would have asked for remuneration. Once the tree is down, no $$$ will put it back. But I would have wanted my pound of flesh in a jail sentence that equalled him breaking into my home and stealing $9000 worth of "my stuff."

Steve

Re: Worthiness

TMStock

>Damn straight - stop property crime and lots of other bad stuff never even gets started.

I don't understand; however, how we can throw around the 'Murder' word WRT furniture hardwoods, but gaily spray Roundup with abandon on 'worthless' weeds. Seems just a bit inconsistent.

It's almost as if our respect for life is strictly tied to market value or human association instead of intrinsic worthiness as living things...

Re: Cannon Fodder

Greg Sloop

>If the blue book value for your truck was a *real* BB value, then you could go buy a comparable truck - same year, opts and mileage for that price. (That's what BB *is* - the average selling price of that vehicle with those features and attributes.)

The point here is that the cost of a tree in lumber vs the cost of the tree *live* ARE not comparable. It would be like my saying I'll replace your truck by dumping all the disassembled parts on your front lawn.

Anyway - replacing your truck with it's blue-book value in cash is reasonable. If the BB value was wrong, you can go to court to resolve it - likely not a cost effective options, but there anyway.

Replacing a tree with it's lumber value times three isn't likely to equal the replacement cost of a *live* tree - esp if the tree is old. With this rational, one could simply go recklessly cutting down any tree less than five years old, as it's lumber value would be zero and zero times three is still zero.

In short, it seems there was a slight IQ problem with the judge, IMHO.

Cheers,

Greg

Re: Cannon Fodder

Greg Sloop

>Ok, read the linked article. No judge... Oops. Disregard that comment...

Still, the point still stands that replacing a 17 meter (50'+ foot) black walnut tree with another *live* 17m tree would cost a lot more than 10K.

The guy who stole the trees, assuming that is what happened, rather than a true accident, got off very cheaply. Transplanting a 17m tree would be no small feat and no small cost.

Cheers,

Greg

Re: OT: Come-along hookup *LINK*

Greg Sloop

>If you're Red Green, a bit o'duct tape would do nicely.

But why stop there when you could design a complete loading system using your power window motors and a few cables and pulleys?

For the uninitated. See the link.


The Red Green show.

Re: OT: Come-along hookup

Greg Sloop

>On that note...

Oh good grief!

Don Thompson, Cutler Ridge, South of Miami FL

>Is this a real TV show?

Yes, believe it or not ;-)

Dan Donaldson

>Just be sure that you do not have any liquids in your mouth when you watch it or you will be doing a lot of cleanup ;-)

Re: OT: Come-along hookup  :^J

William R. Duffield on the Cohansey

>Dont do it the way this guy did it. He is having serious problems getting at the cable to unhook it, so he can pull the second log in behind this one.

My suspicion is that he had souped up his winch based on Tim Allen School of Power Tool Performance and just threw the cable up over the front bumper, back over the roll bar, wrapped it around the log, and hit the START button ;^)

I wish I remember who posted this picture.

Seriously, I suppose it depends a lot on what kind of pickup you have, and how your bed is mounted to your frame, and what types of mounts you already have installed for securing loads. Just pick two sturdy points near the front corners of the bed, hook a chain between them, and attach the winch to the middle of the chain. Back when trucks were really trucks, you could just drop a couple of 2x4s in the obvious holes that were made for mounting homemade racks.

Another funny caption, relevent to the current thread might be: "Make sure they load the log BEFORE you give the road crew the case of beer!"