Someone is butchering young trees along some of P.E.I.'s beloved trails

Someone is cutting the limbs and tops off dozens of small coniferous trees along walking trails in Prince Edward Island. 

Volunteers maintaining trails in Bonshaw, Strathgartney, Dunk River and Winter River have noticed small pine, spruce and fir trees with middle limbs or tops either cut or torn off. That's a concern for Island Trails, the non-profit group that works to promote, develop, and maintain P.E.I.'s network of hiking paths.

"It's very troubling, because it doesn't seem to make any sense," said Bryson Guptill, the group's director of trail maintenance. 

At first, they thought people were cutting boughs to craft Christmas decor, but then they noticed the boughs and tree tops that were chopped off had been left behind, not removed. 

"I think someone thinks that these trees are going to encroach on the trail eventually, and so they're trying to get ahead of the game," Guptill said.

"We don't need that yet… We need the new growth to hide some of that hurricane damage."

Island Trails then wondered if people were finding the trails too narrow, but that didn't make sense either. 

"The trail is about five feet wide, so there's lots of room for new growth," said Guptill, as he stood on one of the trails in the Winter River trail network.  

The group has a program to prune and thin out trees along the trail. Volunteers have been cutting down what remains of trees that have fallen in recent storms such as Fiona in 2022, to encourage them to rot faster and allow sunlight and moisture to reach new growth. 

The trees that have been damaged are that new growth. 

"It's not helping and it's not being of any use to anyone, so I would say, just stop. If they want to help us do maintenance, then come out and help… It spoils the look of the forest too," Guptill said. 

"It's just discouraging to see someone destructively damaging the trees." 

The problem is cropping up in eastern P.E.I. too, the Morell River Management Co-op posted on Facebook Thursday.

"This week we noticed the tops and limbs cut off some young eastern hemlock, white pine and eastern white cedar trees that our crew planted along the trail at Mooney's Pond. We want to give these trees the best chance to thrive and diversify our riparian forest, especially after we lost so many trees during Fiona...