Well yea it's gotta be hundreds of thousands of dollars in trees. That voucher from the lumber yard had at least numbers in the 60s of trees they brought in that load...
Of course it was one of those angry bald guys. Dude should be in jail. Parks are federal land. Stealing from a postal worker or a bank (federal) is a serious crime. Tress are the most important thing next to water and noone seems to care.
His financials need to be investigated, and he should have to return every penny he made off this, and should also be fined for his trouble. This is unacceptable.
That's why he resigned. They were looking into it further and he got out of there. They should still follow through. He got paid bigtime and should be arrested.
The agency must require their employees to provide a printed schedule of behaviors loggers on agency land must follow (above and beyond any contract considered subsidiary to these behavioral requirements) and have that signed by those loggers at the same time as the required specific contract of work.
It was difficult to get him to say how much kickback the official received. State investigators need to get search warrants for the finances of resigned manager and for the loggers (and their spouses.) After the forensic accounting and official charges, a more satisfying interview might be completed. Hopefully no one in the state will do business with these cowboys now - landowners or sawmills/veneer companies.
That manager should've been fired instead of allowed to resign, and he should be investigated for how much he made off the deal he made. There should be a prohibition on the cutting of all old-growth forests in this country. And these old trees should be protected, even if "storm-damaged". Old-growth trees can often be saved and don't need to be felled until they die on their own. even with a hollow in the trunk, those big trees could've lived another 70 years. This is infuriating.
I wonder how much profit they made compared to usual. It would be theft if they took far more than a reasonable amount. Also, the cost of the wood is minor compared to the ecological damage.
They sold over $100,000 for $50,000. That should've set off alarm bells. 125 yr old tree is never going to be replaced. 77 trees even at $1000 a tree is $77k. 100-125 yr olds have to be $10k each or maybe even more. Something smells fishy with the math here.
Discipline, criminal charges more like it. You know damn well that the area manager got a kickback😢 As taxpayers paid that man's salary, he helped steal old trees and turn profits on said trees. Accountability folks 🤬 WE ARE ALL ACCOUNTABLE FOR OUR MISTAKES
its a bit confusing,,,, were the white oaks storm damaged or did the loggers take all the storm damaged trees and then the oaks for payment of the other tree cutting work ?
So millions in trees? This is a big scandal. This is why I have cameras and dogs on my property. Up here in Maine we have the same issue with people stealing trees and always have. Now with cell signal repeaters and solar powered security cameras it's made it much harder for these types of things to happen if you just spend a little bit of money to be alerted to people/vehicles on your property.
Thats a crazy amount of money someone made off with off all that hardwood. They should charge them federally with grand theft and destruction of public property
As is always the case, lots of opinions about no one knows the whole story. The area is full of hiking trails maybe, boss said to remove stom damaged trees. Has anyone seen the rest of the trees or are the only looking at the end product logs. More to a tree than just logs folks. Do you know if those trees were a hazard to public hiking? Don’t want to step on toes, but could the state have hired trimmers to prune out hazards or do the just go the easy route and remove whole trees?
Likely they opened up the canopy so that smaller trees can now grow along with undergrowth that feeds animals. The acorns will be missed for awhile, but trees grow back over time. Better that these trees get used than that they die of old age, disease, or get blown over.
They disciplined the person who did this? How about make them pay for the value of the trees as settlement or face jail time for the federal value in theft as if it was a bank? Trees are worth way more then money. Im so disappointed in society. You all are not my "peers'.
Well is the wildlife manager the scapegoat, he was told to remove storm damaged tree's is what they said on here,so that is fact what he was told. But anyway he should have covered his ss. That is where he ucked up.
The area shown in the flyover shows that that area is way overgrown it needs about 30% of those trees cut down and removed so other plants can grow there because I can tell you deer and other animals like deer can't live in an environment such as that because no plants that deer eat can grow there and also no place for the deer to bed down even birds don't do well in places that overgrown. The truth is trees that are over 200 years old need to be removed every so often to reduce ground water consumption the older the tree is the more water it needs.
The white oaks i saw in Tennessee were about the biggest I've ever seen by far ! Our mississippi white oaks are small compared to those up there! Someone got themselves a kickback on that theft of those trees !
Should have been FIRED and Fined for the total amount the thief's made off the trees they ILLEGALY cut. The Tree THIEF's knew what they were doing was ILLEGAL as well and should be held accountable also. So if 1 person tells 2 people to rob a bank only the 1 that said to rob the bank would get in trouble. Even though the 2 that actually robbed the bank knew it was ILLEGAL to do so.....
No, they were told to take down damaged trees! The state is wrong. They did not have the permission to cut these trees down. The manager didn't have the right to let them cut these trees down!!
@@coltonm8623 Oh grow up. I own and manage over 300 acres of my own forest land. We selectively cut all sizes and ages of trees depending upon our needs and the forests needs. I don't need you to educate me and, for the record, I dont even consider 100 year old trees as "old growth".
@@davidlillie4332 This is about taxpayer owned wildlife reserves getting pilfered by people that don't give a damn about "forest needs". Don't justify theft of taxpayer property.
