Posted on 06/28/2021 12:53:29 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Two home builders who destroyed 36 Joshua trees on their Prescott Avenue property were fined $18,000 in court Tuesday.
“It is unlawful to remove these trees. It is a violation that will be investigated thoroughly and prosecuted,” said Patrick Foy, a captain with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The investigation began Feb. 11, when a Morongo Basin resident saw two local landowners uprooting Joshua trees to make way for a single-family home. They had the trees pulled from the ground and were burying them in a hole on the property, according to the prosecutor.
“A resident in the community who is faced with the same restrictions on developing property, that person was upset to see these two property owners going out and bulldozing 32 Joshua trees and destroying and burying them,” Foy said.
The witness called the CalTip poaching and pollution tip line run by the state Fish & Wildlife Department.
“The action was in progress when the tip came in — in fact the backhoe was actively knocking down and burying these trees, and our closest officer was more than two hours away,” Foy said.
“It wasn’t even his normal patrol area but because the potential crime was in progress, he ran over there and they had just wrapped up for the day. It was pretty obvious what had happened.”
According to Douglas Poston, the supervising deputy district attorney for the Morongo Basin, the wildlife officer found what was clearly a freshly dug and refilled hole.
“His investigation involved using a backhoe to re-dig the hole, where he recovered the buried Joshua trees.”
The officer presented his findings to Poston’s office and they decided to prosecute the landowners, Jeffrey Walter and Jonetta Nordberg-Walter.
The county district attorney’s office filed 36 misdemeanor charges each against Walter and Nordberg-Walter, one for each tree.
Poston said the couple represented themselves in court and cooperated with his office.
They appeared in Judge Shanon Faherty’s courtroom in Joshua Tree on Tuesday and agreed to pay $9,000 each.
“A portion of the fine has been previously paid, and the defendants may earn some additional credit toward the fine by performing volunteer work for Joshua Tree National Park or the Mojave Desert Land Trust,” Poston stated in a press release.
The $18,000 will go into the Western Joshua Tree Mitigation Fund, an account opened by the state. Fish & Wildlife documents say money in the fund pays for land where western Joshua trees will be permanently protected.
The developers also agreed to not violate any law for the diversion period, which starts at 24 months but may be terminated after 12 if they fully comply.
If they pay the fine and complete all terms, the court will dismiss the case. If not, Poston said the district attorney will proceed with prosecution.
Foy and Douglas Poston, supervising prosecutor at the district attorney’s Morongo Basin office, issued a press release about the case to spread the word on Joshua tree protections.
“We wanted to let the public know this is a real thing,” Poston said. “You can be prosecuted criminally now.”
Taking a western Joshua tree became a criminal act in September 2020, when the state Fish & Wildlife Commission made the tree a candidate for endangered or threatened species protections, Foy said.
“The population status of the western Joshua tree has justified its proposed listing and it’s something that we are certainly taking very seriously,” Foy said. “It has been a higher priority for our investigators since the commission decision.”
It is illegal to disturb, move, replant remove or kill western Joshua trees. Taking a western Joshua tree is a misdemeanor crime punishable by up to $4,100 in fines and six months in jail.
The CalTip hotline is run 24 hours a day, seven days a week at (888) 334-2258 and tip411.
Anyone with a cellphone may send an anonymous tip to Fish & Wildlife by texting “CALTIP”, followed by a space and the message, to 847411 (tip411).
Thou shalt not knock down the king’s trees........ even if they are on your own property..................
The person should just claim he is an atheist and felt threated by the Judeo-Christian theology of the Joshua trees.
The builder should know that.
Or claim they were re-planting them.....................
Silly you
That is not your own property. It belongs tot he King....you get to rent it for the taxes.
They’re endangered according to the People’s Republic of California. You know? The state that prefers massive wildfires over disturbing the habitat of an ‘endangered’ mouse?
He shouldn’t have bought the property when he saw them.
Or he should have negotiated the price down because of loss of use because of the presence of the trees.
But he shouldn’t have touched them.
Private property is not a thing. It ought to be.
I’m pretty sure they did, seeing that they were burying them, else why bother......................
Actions have consequences. As the trees were on private property, did the property owners know the laws and protection status when they bought the property? Was it noted when they got building permits? And, regarding those, did they include removal of the trees? I bet they buried them because they knew it was wrong to dig them up, surprised they did this during the day.
Nice neighbourhood!
I was stationed at 29 Palms MCB in 1973.
There was no shortage of Joshua Trees..........................
There is no shortage of those mice, either.
Doesn’t stop the Californians...
Those frikkin’ ugly trees are everywhere out there. They don’t need any protection. This is so dumb.
It’s a new law...and there’s likely no restriction in the property owner’s deed and it’s just another encumbrance on a property that shouldn’t be there.
“I bet they buried them because they knew it was wrong to dig them up, surprised they did this during the day.”
I completely agree with the first part. Hard to plead ignorance.
On the second part, having the backhoe running at night invites curiosity. During the day more people are at work(at least used to be). A better approach might have been to remove one or two every week or month and not to remove so many. I can’t blame the neighbors.
Joshua trees are far from being endangered. I can see a dozen from my back window in Anthem, Arizona. They are on the state land over the fence.
I also noted that they were all along the Beeline highway on the east side of Phoenix on our drive to Payson, yesterday.
In addition Traitor in Chief is set to issue regulation declaring that rain water puddle a navigable water way. Private property - thing of the past.
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