I was just wondering about something I read in our local newspaper. The article said a local logger was in court for a timber tresspass. Here are the stats from the coalmine that owned the timber . 117,503 bd ft valued at $67,783.
How many truck loads would this equal out to and do the numbers sound right for a 35 acre tract of land that is wooded? Would it be possible to cut that much timber from 35 acres of land ? The land is in the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia and would probably be mixed hardwoods . Cherry , Walnut , Red Oak , White Oak , and Poplar . How many days would it take a crew with a skidder, JD 650 and 4 guys to do this in good weather?
The logger bought 7 acres adjacent to the 35 acres and said he didn't knowingly cut the timber that wasn't on his land. I can't beleive that a person with 22 years of logging experience couldn't know the difference between 7 acres and 42 acres.
Personally I think the coalmine is over estimating the timber volume. I also think the logger isn't truthfull either. I 'm not the sharpest pencil in the box, but in my mind I could tell if I was cutting timber on 5 times the amount of land I owned.
For your information a jury of 12 people found the logger NOT GUILTY of this timber tresspass ! Only in America
From a western perspective which does not apply here that is that 3300 to the acre or a just OK thinning here. There are a couple of places in the Redwoods were there is that much on one acre. 8) One of the others could give you the real scoop that applies to that area.
Most guys who are trespassing will take the very best trees. I'm not sure which tree scale is being used, but the value comes out to $576/Mbf. That might be high for poplar, but is pretty low for cherry. A lot depends on quality.
The average truck load is about 3500 bf. So, that's about 34 truckloads. That's about 1-2 weeks of work, depending on conditions and timber size.
3300 bf/acre is not at all out of line. I used to do 5 Mbf/acre thinnings in decent hardwood, and still have a good residual stand.
I've seen oak run 8-12 Mbf/acre and poplar as high as 20 Mbf/acre. The loggers should have known they weren't cutting on the 7 acres, since that would put them in the 16 Mbf/acre range. He should also know what 7 acres looks like.
He's lucky its only timber trespass. I was in on one case where they tried to make it grand theft and were going for jailtime. Logger wasn't in the wrong on that one, though
Are there double or triple damages in your state? That could effectively bankrupt the guy and put him out of business, where he belongs.
Yes, quite a difference between 7 acres and 42 acres, 35 acres more. Do you know any of the circumstances as to why the jury found the logger "not guilty". He didn't get all the coal company's timber at no cost did he?? He must have had to pay civil damages that included the timber value I would think.
As far as I know the only money he paid was $15,000 to repair the areas where skidder trails were cut. Other than that there wasn't alot more info in the paper. They caught him bringing the timber off his land through their property and started looking around at all the stumps that were fresh cut.I don't know if they can get damages from him or not.The way I see it he made about $53,000 minus lawyer fees.Not a bad trade if you can withstand having your name soiled like that.I couldn,t do that to someone's property , but I guess that depends on how high your morals are.