During this morning’s walk in Mt. Hope Cemetery in Roslindale, I saw that the burl thieves are at it again, in a similarly pointless manner.

Scar on a maple tree from an attempted burl theft

 

This time the victim was a maple tree, but the result was the same:

Poached burl at base of maple tree

 

The would-be thieves left the burl behind when they realized that it was shot through with carpenter ant tunnels.

Insect-damaged burl at the base of a maple tree

 

In this case, they had screwed in tree steps to aid in their vandalism, further damaging the tree.

Tree steps screwed into maple tree by burl thieves

 

A recent article in the New York Times reports on the apotheosis of this activity; the local manifestations haven’t risen to this level of desecration yet, but it’s still a disappointing thing to see at 6:30 on a Monday morning.