Bored holes are damaging trees, state authorities say

MONTREAL - The theft of maple products continues apace — now it’s sap suckers in Maine.

There has been a rash of reports of maple trees illegally tapped in the white mountain state.

Property owners report holes bored in their trees and buckets, plastic containers and sometimes, even PVC pipe, attached to collect the sweet watery sap.

Of course, you’d need a heck of a lot of the sap to make something out of it because the ratio of sap to syrup is 40:1. You need 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup.

On average, one mature sugar maple tree produces up to 10 gallons of sap a year.

This small-scale thievery pales in comparison to Quebec’s record $20-million theft of thousands of gallons of refined maple syrup out of a warehouse in St-Louis-de-Blandford in 2012, a crime that is still under investigation.

Not only is it against the law to steal the sap out of someone else’s trees but the tapping by dastardly thieves is damaging trees that might otherwise be destined for furniture-making.

With large bore holes marring the wood, the trees can only be used for pulp.

The tapping has even bordered on the sacrilegious: in one instance, maple trees planted in a cemetery were also violated.

At the height of the sap collection season, when warm days and cold nights cause the sap to rise and fall, our neighbours to the south are shaking their heads and their fists at this new trend.

“I don’t think it makes a lot of sense, you need a certain amount of trees to make this worth it and the equipment is expensive,” said John Bott, director of communications for the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forests.

“We don’t know how widespread this is. It all depends on which part of the state we’re talking about and there have been more reports in the more remote areas to the north.

“People may think this is a victimless crime, but it’s not. Drilling into the first board, the lower part of the tree, damages potential lumber and diminishes the value of that tree,” Bott said.

In many instances, the sap stealers are using 7/8-inch drill bits, three times the industry standard of 5/16 of an inch to drill holes for the taps, and putting four taps on each tree, instead of the recommended maximum of two per tree. All these large holes make the trees more prone to disease and decay.

Another aspect of the thefts is that property owners might “post” their properties which would punish the greater population, Bott said.

“Maine is 89 per cent forest and most of that is private land,” Bott said.

Outdoor-loving residents who have previously had unfettered access to most of this land for fishing, hunting, bird-watching, hiking, skiing and other sports, might find they are unwelcome on private property if the vandalism and theft continues.

“These thefts highlight how a small percentage of the population can wreck it for the rest. Sap theft is a problem but it speaks to the larger problem of respect for private property rights.

“We want people to be on the lookout and are building awareness of the situation,” Bott said.