Crooks in the Pickup Trucks

Andrew Gollnick
March 22, 2011
Crooks in the Pickup trucks


Picture yourself as a well to do landowner with some timber land in the state. It is the high point of your day to go out and walk it every morning before work and watch the cute little fuzzy critters run around and look at the deer tracks in the snow. For some of you, this may actually be a reality for you or your parents. The last thing that most people would want to happen would be an intrusion into their own piece of paradise. Currently in the state of Wisconsin, there are 361,000 private non-industrial landowners, and a good percentage of them have some sort of management plan for their property (i.e. MFL, Forest Stewardship Plan, etc). Sometime or another in the plan there is probably some type of management that should be done in the future, most of the time a harvest of some sort is needed. Enter the logger.
Most landowners views of loggers go one of two ways; either there upstanding guys with a pickup truck and a chainsaw, or they are a bunch of crooks out to cut and rape the forest of every merchantable stick of timber. Being employed in the timber industry, and seeing both sides of the story, I am as well inclined to believe this is true as well. Some of this is misunderstanding of the landowner on how a timber sale works and the lack of assistance they may have. The other part is greed on the part of the logger or the mill that is buying the timber. A logger is paid on the amount of timber that is cut and the landowner gets his share from that as well. It obviously pays to cut more trees on both the loggers and the landowner’s part but, aesthetics and forest quality may suffer in the long run. Some loggers let greed overcome them in not adequately scaling the loads or even flat out stealing loads while the landowner is not there when they are hauled out.
What is needed is a compromise on both ends as well as education for both parties involved throughout the whole process. Landowners must understand that harvests are needed to maintain forest health and species diversity as well in the case of oak wilt, the spread of disease. In addition to forest education, seeking out competent help in setting up a timber sale from either a consulting forester or a reputable contractor is a good way to go. They can help in the sale layout, cruising and estimation from the harvest as well as have the experience to know when a logger is in the wrong. In addition to landowner education the logger must also do business in a responsible way on every timber sale the they work on. Most if not all loggers are out to do well on the land in the way of forestry as well as make some sort of profit. It’s the other operators that do steal loads and abuse the forest that get portrayed as thieves in the public that give the rest a bad name. Having a competent contractor that can effectively communicate to the landowner about what they are doing is the key to a successful timber harvest. All too often have I heard about stories about “That crook in the pickup truck” knowing that what they did was good forestry and fair dealings with the landowner. It will take time but thoughts and opinions can change.

References: John Dupliss, Forestry 499 Private Forest Management-Class slides.