Dozens of trees stolen throughout Ozaukee County Parks
OZAUKEE COUNTY, Wis. (CBS 58) -- Thieves have made off with dozens of trees in Ozaukee County parks, a loss of over $4,000 to county taxpayers. The push is on to find them.
Director of Ozaukee County Parks Andrew Struck was dumbstruck in June, after the first report of tree thefts.
"This was purposeful, they actually dug the trees out of the ground in order to take them," said Struck.
There are 20 young trees missing, including white oak, burr oak, iron wood and prarpie crab apple. These trees were planted to provide shade again where the emerald ash borer had damaged older trees in three other parks, which were Hawthrone Hills, Tendick Nature park, and Waubedonia.
"We were just trying to replace the ash and we're trying to do that throughout the county parks system," said Struck.
The thieves responsible for stealing a dozen trees in June seemed to have returned in August, after the county filled those bare spots with new trees. Some were as high as 12 feet tall.
When we replanted the trees, we actually put this caging around it, it protects it from deer, but in this case, we were actually hoping to slow the thefts down and hopefully discourage them from taking additional trees," said Struck.
Baby trees are now protected by fencing. This one's been stolen twice in the same spot despite the fencing.
"Seems a little senseless because I don't know what the survivability of these will be. Some of them were dug out a little bit more, other ones just pulled out of the ground and of course they were all newly planted, so a little bit easier to, you know they weren't rooted in," said Struck.
Park Officials believe the crime happened during park hours. Trail cameras are now up, and they're asking anyone who saw something out of the ordinary at Hawthorne hills, Tendick or Waubadonia parks to give the Ozaukee County sheriff's department a call at 262-284-7172