Thieves Steal Minnesota's Prized Birch Trees, And Here's Why

Prized for their distinctive bark characteristics and slim branches, white birch trees are in high demand for home decor and crafts. And they’re disappearing quickly from the woods in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

The culprit isn’t a pest like the emerald ash borer, an invasive beetle that has killed off millions of trees. These pests are the two-legged kind. Armed with axes and chainsaws, they’re cutting down the white birches, leaving ugly, gaping holes in the northern landscape where the graceful trees once stood. In some areas, as many as 300 trees have been clear cut.

As recently as two years ago, the black market for white birch didn’t exist. But as the price of cut birch branches increases with demand, tree bandits are looking to make a fast dollar while feeding the seemingly insatiable appetite of crafters, artisans and decorators who festoon them with lights, turn them into candle holders, and use longer logs for floor-to-ceiling room dividers and bed posts. Pinterest, Etsy and similar sites are teeming with ideas to bring nature into an urban space.

The logs aren’t cheap, either. A set of eight white birch logs 2-3 inches in diameter and 18 inches long sells for $32.99 on Amazon.

Scott Endres, co-owner of Tangletown Gardens in Minneapolis, Minnesota, said birch logs and twigs are big trends, but he works only with vendors who legally harvest birch and employ sustainable practices.

“Folks in urban areas appreciate the beauty of it and like to have a little of the North Woods showing up in their outdoor containers, as well as their indoor decor,” he told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “Interior designers use it a lot.”

“It’s sad,” he said, that birch has become contraband.

The theft of white birch trees has become so pervasive that the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources brought county foresters, law enforcement agencies and others together in a summit Thursday to discuss the problem, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. Catching the thieves won't be easy. They typically operate surreptitiously at night in secluded areas, and they target stands of young trees that can be clipped in a short amount of time, DNR conservation officer Dave Zebro said.

Tree thieves can “go in and grab a couple hundred trees in a couple hours and they’re gone before anyone sees them or we can respond,” Zebro said.

In Minnesota, Lt. Shelly Patten of that state’s DNR said the areas targeted by thieves look like clear cut areas left behind in logging sites.

“There’s not a whole lot left there but stumps,” Patten told the Star Tribune, adding that she wasn’t aware of the trend until sought explanations for the desecrated landscape. “To be honest, I didn’t even know what the thieves were doing with it,” she said.

In Wisconsin’s Washburn County, about a half dozen people have been charged for stealing birch trees. Chief Deputy Mike Richter of the Washburn County Sheriff’s Office thinks the tree bandits are “unsophisticated, small-time thieves” who turned from salvaging scrap metal to arboreal thefts to support drug habits.

“They’re grabbing and stealing anything they can convert into money,” he told the Star-Tribune.

Given the number of trees that have been felled, Richter doesn’t think authorities have made a dent in the problem, noting “there’s a lot more missing product out there.”

At the rate thieves are cutting down young birch trees, it could take 10 to 15 years to restore it, Paul Dubuque, a Minnesota DNR silviculture manager told the Star Tribune. Birch trees place plenty of competition from faster-growing and aggressive species.

“It’s important to manage that young population of birch,” Dubuque said. “Otherwise, it takes a future crop away from the forest.”

Biodiversity also suffers, as birch twigs, buds and seeds are an important food source for songbirds like redpolls, pine siskins and chickadees. Brown creepers nest in the crevices of the bark. When they fall over naturally, they provide habitat for salamanders, which keep forest soils aerated. When there’s nothing else to eat, deer and elk browse on the bark of birch trees.

And the thieves aren’t always trekking into the woods to get birch. In Brookfield, Wisconsin, last month, two brazen thieves walked into a local business and stole 14 birch trees, authorities said.

Photo by Till Westermayer via Flickr Commons