widespread murder

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This landscape has been noticed over the years, if not daily, certainly frequently. What's with all the dead trees? There must be 30 - 50 mature sized trees that are standing dead. Where there's curiosity, there's a photograph - or three. Little was I prepared for what I found.

What I found is clear in the last four photos, but may not be apparent without some words. All the trees have been intentionally killed - by the hand of some tool wielding human with a plan. Since I was trespassing on the land, I have no idea who the owner is, or what their intention for it is. One can only imagine scenarios for what was in the mind of the perpetrator, and whether he was indeed the land owner or some wronged party seeking revenge.

As a member of a society that takes great stock in individual rights, and especially the rights of land owners, I can't really dispute what an owner does with the resources on his land. Although as a civil society we do indeed regulate with a high degree what land owners are permitted to build on their property. But in this instance, whether this land owner kills his trees over a period of several years, or chooses to rip them out and mulch them in a matter of days in the course of "improving" his land, I really have no place to say much.

Nonetheless, it makes me wonder what was going on in the mind of the hatchet man while he systematically went around this piece of property and cut a ring in the periderm of all the mature trees, a simple but surefire way to terminate the organisms.