The individual or group responsible for damaging about 30 trees in Halifax’s public gardens “knew exactly what they were doing,” the city’s senior urban forestry supervisor said Wednesday.
Sometime between Monday night and Tuesday morning, strips of bark were removed around the trunks of many trees, most of which are between 50 and 200 years old, police said.
It is unclear how many trees will be lost due to the damage. Bark cutting—called girdling—is a method used to destroy trees without cutting them down. If the cambium layer—the part of the tree that produces new wood—is damaged enough, the tree will die.
Kevin Osmond, senior manager of Halifax’s urban forestry department, said the girdling appeared to have been done with a hatchet or small axe.
“They knew exactly what they were doing”
“Someone who did this knew exactly what they were doing,” Osmond told reporters Wednesday, pointing to a 200-year-old weeping beech tree. “They intentionally went out to damage that tree, to try to kill that tree.”
“Girdling a tree usually kills it,” he said, because it cuts off the flow of nutrients and water into the tree.
Osmond said that after assessing the damage, he expects the financial cost of the vandalism to be in the “hundreds of thousands” of dollars.
A damaged tree is shown at Halifax Community Gardens on Wednesday. (Lindsey Armstrong/The Canadian Press)
A commissioner on duty noticed the damage at 7am on Tuesday morning as their shift began. The community gardens were closed to the public all day Tuesday while police investigated and gardeners worked to assess and repair the damage.
The gardens reopened to the public on Wednesday and some visitors came to mourn the state of the trees.
Amy Cahoon, who is visiting Halifax from Ontario, said she canceled her plans for the day to spend time in the gardens after learning of the damage. “It feels like a funeral for the trees,” she said in an interview Wednesday.
“I just don’t understand what would be the motivation of someone to do something like this and harm the most beautiful and innocent living things,” she added.
City officials will monitor the health of the trees in the coming months to see how many will survive. (Regional Municipality of Halifax)
Michael White, who lives across the street from the Gardens, said he was “very upset” when he learned of the vandalism. White said he spends a lot of time in the gardens, usually with camera in hand, taking pictures of the flowers and trees.
On Wednesday, he left his camera at home, he said, because he wasn’t in the mood to take pictures after learning of the damage. He said he was shocked and disappointed that someone would target “such a beautiful place” that is so loved by the community.
“It’s like our home has been broken into”
Shaun Street, head of horticulture at the Gardens, said his team of horticulturists had been devastated by the incident. “Community gardens have been around for 150 years, and as far as we know, nothing like this has ever happened,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
For his team of gardeners, some of whom have worked at the Gardens for decades, “we feel like our home has been invaded,” he said.
Four small trees that were damaged have been removed in their entirety, and the horticulturist team is working to save the remaining trees. Osmond said it could take more than a year to know if their rehabilitation efforts are successful.
Gardeners took the stripped bark from the bases of the damaged trees and attached them back like “pieces of a puzzle,” Osmond said. Next, his team will try bridging the trees, which involves taking healthy bark from a taller tree and using it to repair the cut.
Street said he hopes the public has information that can help the police investigation. He said the type of vandalism that occurred “would have made a lot of noise and would have gone on for quite some time”.
Halifax Regional Police are asking anyone with knowledge of the incident to contact them.
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