Ray and Beverly Kent say that some of their most prized possessions were taken without their permission and that they can't get anyone to do anything about it.
The Kents aren't missing any money or jewels. Instead, they say, 20 valuable trees were removed from their property in Colden.
"It would be like someone coming on to your property, and they stole your lawn tractor," said Beverly Kent.
"The county won't help us out, and the state won't help us out," said her husband, Ray.
A change in state law aimed at curtailing the theft of valuable trees was supposed to help people such as the Kents, but its impact has been limited. Forestry experts point to the difficulty of proving crimes that happen deep in the woods on what is often imprecisely marked land.
"I don't think the rank-and-file thief out there has been very impressed or deterred just by the new statute," said Capt. Gary L. Bobseine of the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
Statewide, the number of timber theft investigations by the DEC is down slightly, from 62 in 2004 to 57 in 2006.
But Western New York's numerous wood lots continue to be tempting targets: 62 of the 177 investigations in those three years occurred here.
Those numbers probably understate the extent of the problem, investigators say, noting that many people who own large amounts of wooded land don't walk the property routinely and may be unaware of timber thefts.
"If you have 20 or 30 acres and someone steals a bunch of timber, you may not know for years," said Assemblyman Jack F. Quinn III, D-Hamburg.
Prices for popular hardwoods have climbed by about 15 percent over the last five years, according to consulting forester Bruce Robinson. High-quality black cherry trees can command up to $1,000 apiece, he said.
Occasionally, the intent to steal is clear. Two years ago, Jack Van Scoter of Cockaigne Ski Resort in Cherry Creek asked a logger to walk some acreage he wanted timbered and provide an estimate of its value.
The next day, he caught the man cutting trees on the property.
"He said my employee gave him permission, but my employee, of course, did not and would not," Van Scoter said. Chautauqua County prosecutors eventually convicted the man.
"It wasn't the first time this person had done this," said Chautauqua County District Attorney David W. Foley. "We were successful in getting a state prison term."
While most loggers are responsible, Bobseine said, investigators keep running across the same handful "who have proven not to be trustworthy."
Most cases are not cut and dried. More often than not, cases involve neighbors, and there is confusion about property boundaries - and which trees are on whose land.
That is what happened to dairy farmer Ronnie Nelson of Busti, who said a logger operating under orders from a neighbor cut down 100 trees worth $8,000 from a secluded area on his farm two years ago.
Nelson said the neighbor had told a logging crew that it could take trees up to a fence.
"They were probably a quarter-mile onto my property," he said.
The saw mill owner who contracted to do the logging agreed to pay him for the trees.
Nelson said he believes that it was an honest mistake.
The precise location of a property boundary is also at the heart of the timber dispute the Kents are having with their neighbor Frank Antonucci.
The Kents contend that a logger working for Antonucci took 20 trees, which a DEC forester estimated were worth $3,600, from their side of the property line. And they are angry that no one will prosecute the case.
According to a DEC investigation report, a logger working for Antonucci stopped marking trees for harvest when he saw signs in the woods indicating that some of them might not be on Antonucci's property.
The logger sought assurances from Antonucci that the trees were indeed on his land. According to the report, Antonucci told the logger that he had contacted the Kents and that they had agreed the trees in question were on his property.
Antonucci denied he deliberately took trees from the Kents' property and said Beverly Kent told him to disregard the property signs posted in the woods.
That assertion is untrue, Ray Kent said.
Antonucci insisted that a survey the Kents had done was not "100 percent correct" and that he was awaiting his own survey. If that survey showed that the trees he took were on the Kents' property, he said, he would pay for them,
"I don't want to keep money if it's rightfully his," he said.
Antonucci also said he offered what he felt was fair value for the trees as a "neighborly gesture." The fact that there had been an attempt at paying restitution was one of the reasons Erie County District Attorney Frank J. Clark said his office decided not to seek criminal charges.
"The worst that would have happened was restitution, if we were able to prove [the case]," Clark said. "The victim had an ample civil remedy."
Still, Clark said he would review the Kents' case to see if the facts as he understood them were correct.
Landowners can avoid disputes by being diligent and vigilant, said Wayne Cooper, the DEC's regional forester.
"If a landowner can't walk around the property line, get somebody in the family or a friend to do it," he said. "And you need to delineate your property so somebody doesn't wander on and say, "Oh, I thought it was mine.' "Buffalo News
