The Senator is gone

It was a sad day in the tree world. The Senator, in Big Tree Park in Longwood, FL was burnt by and "arsonist". For thos of you that don't know, The Senator is a 3500 year old cypress (5th largets tree in the world). Some meth heads started a fire inside of it and it burned from the inside out.

This is a picture from the 1920's



http://beta.local.yahoo.com/news-woman-admits-she-burned-down-500-old-tree.html

I'm sure this doesn't belong here but I wanted to share.

Goes to show, Meth Kills.

Kurt

This was discussed a while ago (see thread:The Senator is Gone), but I guess they just figured out how the fire started. What a shame.

a couple years ago some drunk teenagers did the same thing to one of the worlds largest ever sycamore trees in a remote part of webster county west virginia. I used to visit this tree every summer. Only about 20 feet of the base still stands the rest fell over (it was hollow for over 60 feet). I contacted the owner of the land (a large logging company that has protected the tree for years) about filling the base with concrete or something after the first arson attempt several years prior but they were not interested. Thomas pakenhams books on amazing trees of the world show some interesting attempts that people make to salvage old dying giants (shingles, concrete, poles, cables, etc...) but those trees are all in europe. The west virginia logging company told me they prefer to make pens out of the wood of it rather than trying to save it.

Alex, you would probably enjoy reading "The Race to Save the Lord God Bird". It's about how that same mentality doomed the ivory-billed woodpeckers. Wonderful - but depressing - book.

"The evil that men do lives after them----------------" Says W. Shakespeare.

mike page wrote:"The evil that men do lives after them----------------" Says W. Shakespeare.

great quote.........its a huge shame the woman charged will probably never realise what she has killed . much the same as the loggers and others that destroy or remove very old irreplaceable trees.

some kind of justice is done i guess, but there are no winners or losers in this instance.

marcus

I think we all lost something here...

I agree Chris, nature belongs to everybody and to nobody.
The Bushman couldnt believe that the Europeans wanted to own the land, when they first landed here in 1652.
They said..
"how can you own something that you get born on and die on..."
Those druggies that destroyed the tree, deprived the world of beauty and wisdom
...and there is such a thing as Karma..

[quote="marcus watts"]

mike page wrote:"...its a huge shame the woman charged will probably never realise what she has killed . much the same as the loggers and others that destroy or remove very old irreplaceable trees.

marcus

True, and that might hit home more than some realize!

one of the worst inventions of man is chainsaw, 100 years to build a tree, 30 minutes to cut it.
in my village this week 3 oaks 200 years aged were cut for firewood! ....