Redwood Burl Poaching

[Don Robinson]

I just saw a news report that people are poaching the burls growing on the Redwood trees in California. Here is a related item from the NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/09/us/poachers-attack-beloved-elders-of-california-its-redwoods.html?_r=0

I can't believe that the money grubbing bastards would stoop so low.

Please be careful where you buy your burl wood.

 

[lew]

Saw this story tonight on the news. The reporter said they thought the poachers were meth addict and selling the wood for dope. If they can go to that much work, to steal a burl, why can't they get a job and get off of welfare?

[Mark Wisecarver]

Yup, I've been watching this for a couple of months now and saw the recent news too.

Some woodworkers are reporting they're have been many cases of "fleabay" activity, including making it look "vintage" to get more money.

We should probably do a future blog about distressing wood and how it is also used to trick buyers.

[John Morris]

Burl poaching, we had a few of these guys just a couple months ago in our neck of the woods, but they were going around our parks and even residences to cut their burls off.

[DAB]

if there is no demand, there will be no market.

[Steve Krumanaker]

It's not new and it's not limited to redwood burls. Read this article a couple years ago. Just do a google search and you'll see it's very wide spread and pretty big business.

 

Steve

[John Morris]

12 minutes ago, Steve Krumanaker said:

It's not new and it's not limited to redwood burls. Read this article a couple years ago. Just do a google search and you'll see it's very wide spread and pretty big business.

 

Steve

Here in So Cal Steve, we have a huge supply of Eucalyptus, some of the biggest ones you'll ever see, and the burls on them are ginormous, our Eucalpytus throughout our parks and residential areas have become targets, I hate to see it.

[Chips N Dust]

Wood poaching is nothing new. In the coast range of Oregon where I grew up, you always had "cedar thieves" going out and poaching either western red cedar or Port Orford cedar for shakes or arrow bolts. You could sell PO cedar, at the time for $10,000/MBF or better in log form (I have no idea what it is now) and the darn cedar thieves would go in an cut an entire 40' log into 3' rounds and leave 1/2 or better of the log. Also had the burl poachers taking big leaf maple or myrtlewood burls when and where they could find them.

Edited August 30, 2016 by Chips N Dust

[HandyDan]

It is always sad to see poaching happen but it seems the punishment never fits the crime.  Makes it worthwhile for them to risk getting away with it.

[Cliff]

3 hours ago, John Morris said:

Here in So Cal Steve, we have a huge supply of Eucalyptus, some of the biggest ones you'll ever see, and the burls on them are ginormous, our Eucalpytus throughout our parks and residential areas have become targets, I hate to see it.

 When I was in sonoma wine country they were taking scads of eucalyptus down along a train line  I'd have loved to have been able to pile it on a truck and ship it east

[John Morris]

42 minutes ago, Cliff said:

 When I was in sonoma wine country they were taking scads of eucalyptus down along a train line  I'd have loved to have been able to pile it on a truck and ship it east

Boy you got that right Cliff. It's a common sight here to see the city or county tree crews cutting them down along the road side to make way for road widenings or other construction purposes. I always wish I had a flat bed and mill, they end up as firewood. A fortunate thing about the Euc though, they do grow like weeds, you can virtually cut them down to the trunk, just like your winterizing a rose bush, and within a year or two, the Euc is back bigger and meaner. They are incredible trees.

[DRAGON1]

How about driving a few nails through the burls? Would make them useless.

[Kevin Beitz]

When I lived in Ga. for a few years they had problems with poaching cypress knees.