Vandals attack saplings in Golden Gate Park

[Auggie]

San Francisco Chronicle / 6-20-13

The victims were just babies, no older than 3 to 5 years of age. Many had just reached the point where they could stand on their own.

And the bad guys got them all.

San Francisco park officials say that since September, vandals have been systematically going through reforestation plots and breaking the tops off young trees. More than 200 trees have been attacked in such a manner, most left beyond saving.

“What they’ve done is gone through each of these areas in each of these instances and basically snapped off the top of the tree,” Andersen said. “They’ll go through and do every tree, in a very thorough and damaging way. It’s really malicious, and very thorough, and very methodical.”

LINK: http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2013/06/20/vandals-attack-saplings-in-golden-gate-park



Officials are looking for leads.

[kestrel91316]

1. Teen children of environment-hating teabagger types, I assume.

Sick, sick, sick.

[Auggie]

5. I'm thinking it's a person with mental health issues

[kestrel91316]

6. One could make a fairly strong argument that they are one and the same.

[KamaAina]

7. Very few of those in The City

although, come to think of it, Michael Savage Weiner is there...

[kestrel91316]

8. Baggers have cars.

[KamaAina]

9. Actually not that many in the whole Bay Area

but plenty in the Central Valley and Sierra foothills, like the nutjob who was heading into SF to shoot up the Tides Foundation and got in a shootout with CHP on 580 in Oakland.

[Trajan]

2. Bait car?

How bout ' Bait Tree'?

They need to dedicate some resources to catching these idiots ... some kind of remote video cameras with police in a van somewhere nearby? ...

[WovenGems]

3. Bait

We use stuffed deer to catch shiners here. Works every time. In this case I would recommend motion activated cameras. Check out wildlife movement and even wilder life doing wrong.

[DetlefK]

4. No, to elaborate. Better set up a trap.

Mark all the new trees with a sign saying "Please don't touch."

First idea:
One of the trees is a fake made of plastic: If a sensor inside gets bended or snatched, an explosive device with paint goes off.

There are various chemicals that could be used: food-coloring is non-poisonous and hard to remove. Phthalocyanine(s)-powder is slightly carcinogen and impossible to remove from any surface with household-means. Carbon-powder diluted in alcohol is also hard to remove from skin and you will never-ever get those black spots out of your clothes (believe me).



Second idea:
Cameras buried close to the stem, looking upwards so they get a nice image of all the people looking down on the tree.

[Tyrs WolfDaemon]

10. If we had the time and money, this is what I would like...

Develop a set of trees that will EAT anyone that tries to hurt them. That would punish the bad humans and fertilize the trees.

Problems will arise when they need some pruning, but surely we could do something about that as well. Tree Tranq darts, Tree MJ, Tree Haldol.

[SoapBox]

11. This sort of thing happened in our area...

a few years ago, Los Angeles County did planting of trees in a park nearby.

It didn't take long before several were just plain old dug up and stolen...while others were bent, broken, cut and eventually died.

What the fuck is wrong with these sick bastards?

[Auggie]

12. I can understand stealing trees ...

planting for personal use or reselling for profit. I don't advocate it, but I can understand it.

Mutilation? Yeah, that's sick.

[shanti]

13. Game camera

Why hasn't anyone done that?