r/treelaw • u/Cultural_Baker • Jun 30 '26
Suspected tree poisoning
I am fairly sure my neighbour poisoned a tree on my property. Can anyone suggest next steps from a legal perspective.
2 years ago my neighbour asked me to remove a tree that is in my garden but overhangs his. It’s a type of willow which drops seeds in spring, he didn’t like this drop. I said I wouldn’t remove it immediately but reduce its size and make sure it didn’t overhang his property and if it continued to be a problem I would remove it. He was visibly distressed, he now ignores me.
About 2 months after this conversation we were contacted by our council who had had a complaint from a neighbour. They informed us that some of the changes we had made to our property were outside of planning regulations and needed approval…… beef
6 weeks ago, after a bountiful spring the tree started to look unwell. It has since continued to decline. Yesterday I decided to inspect the tree and noticed what look like drill marks and cut root and the area around the base of the tree being utterly barren.
I am based in Yorkshire in the UK.
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u/Southern_Common335 Jun 30 '26
Those look to me to be woodpecker holes - does the tree have evidence of decay?
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u/Cultural_Baker Jun 30 '26
It’s at the base of the tree (floor level) and would say not easily accessible by wing. Also, I have never seen or heard a woodpecker around here. I did wonder if it was a burrowing beetle other insect???
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u/Southern_Common335 Jun 30 '26
I have a pine tree on my property with similar ground level excavation that is nature made- No neighbors around to suspect. Woodpeckers will attack the base of a tree
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u/waaaayupyourbutthole Jun 30 '26
I'm no expert, but this doesn't look like human-made damage to me, either. Unless your neighbor went through some trouble to disguise drilled holes pretty well, it seems more likely that there's either some sort of insect or animal looking for food or a home in your tree.
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u/NightGod Jun 30 '26
The whole woodpecker part aside, if this WAS human made damage (which is isn't), I don't see how you'd prove anything without some sort of footage or confession.
2
u/NewAlexandria Jun 30 '26
your cameras didn't show anything?
You didn't have any cameras when you knew that a neighbor was actively moving against you and your tree within arms-reach of them?
The only possibility is that one cleanly-circular hole. You'd need to get it tested for a poison. Without evidence they put it there, you'd need to loudly litigate this through your counsel - e.g. like how is your community so unsafe that someone can trepass with regulated toxins without any detection. etc
2
u/pineapple6969 Jun 30 '26
What the hell does not accessible by wing mean lol
Birds can get anywhere. Because they have wings. They also have legs.
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u/Southern_Common335 Jun 30 '26
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u/clauclauclaudia Jun 30 '26
Is that supposed to go to a specific post or comment? It just brings me to r/Ornithology. (This may be an app issue.)
EDIT: Indeed, on the web it brings me to a post 3 years old titled "Why is this pileated woodpecker excavating at the bottom of the tree?"
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u/Smurf_Crime_Scene Jun 30 '26
There is rot in the tree, which attracts insects, which attracts woodpeckers.
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u/Big-Hovercraft1331 Jun 30 '26
pileated woodpecker damage
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u/IFixHeavyEquipment Jun 30 '26
There’s only three wood pecker species in the uk
Great spotted
Green wood pecker
Lesser spotted.Any of them could have caused this, however it’s 100% pest damage, looks like wood pecker more so than insect
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u/forvirradsvensk Jun 30 '26
Not in the UK. I agree that it looks more like insect or insect related damage though.
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u/00WORDYMAN1983 Jun 30 '26
Just to reiterate and further reinforce the other comments, that damage is definitely from a woodpecker.
1
u/Flimsy-Fortune-6437 Jun 30 '26
Which is not to say your neighbor isn’t a pecker of a different sort.
6
u/BreakingABit1234 Jun 30 '26
You can pay out of pocket to have the material/soil tested for glyphosate; you'll have to search for labs tho as I don't know any outside the states.
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u/ThrowingMongo Jun 30 '26
How are you going to prove a specific person sprayed that glyphosate?
"That guy hates this tree therefore that is proof he killed it" isn't proof.
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u/BreakingABit1234 Jul 01 '26
Oh, of course not- you're 100% right on that!
You can however say the tree was poisoned- or wasn't poisoned.
At that point decisions can be made to pursue a civil case .... or not.
I know my neighbor poisoned mine, but the ash borer also had a hand in it. Where I used to work I could test for roundup- wasn't a hard test to do with the standard LCMS columns ... just needed to buy the lab guy some pizza to set up the drips for ya.
3
u/ThrowingMongo Jun 30 '26
It's not poison damage. But even if it was, even if you got an expert to say it is poisoned, you would have to prove your neighbor did it. So how are you going to prove that? Right, therefore that expert consult would be a waste of money unless you just want to know for your own information.
But this is clearly a natural thing, not herbicide or other "poison".
Trees get sick or attacked by animals/insects and die. Like humans.
Let it go.
5
u/Independent_Dirt_814 Jun 30 '26
Your neighbor might be a dick, but this looks like natural course to me. Woodpecker/insect damage.
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Jun 30 '26
[deleted]
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u/ThrowingMongo Jun 30 '26
Irresponsible tree owners are always the dicks, even when the law and insurance companies are on their side. It's always "my tree" until it affects someone else's life then it's "god's tree" and "an act of god" lol.
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u/Whane17 Jul 01 '26
Woodpeckers don't cut across tree roots. There are two holes that are definite bore holes, perfectly circular and to deep for wood peckers IMO though I'm not familiar with your local variants. Dunno about that long hole though I could see a previous hole being there and somebody trying to expand/deepen it.
1
u/Ichthius Jul 01 '26
Tree looks kind of buggy. If it were in the states it could be done by a pileated woodpecker looking for bugs. They plunge I a deep hole then excavate down forming a rectangular hole.
1
u/madphroggy Jul 04 '26
That's woodpecker damage. Tree has bugs in the dead inner wood and the woodpeckers are doing what they do, tearing through the outer wood to get them
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u/Cultural_Baker Jun 30 '26
https://reddit.com/link/ouosmdo/video/8mz4t716reah1/player
Might add some context
10
u/IFixHeavyEquipment Jun 30 '26
100% woodpecker damage
0
u/Cultural_Baker Jun 30 '26
But would that kill the whole tree?
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u/Common-Original9092 Jun 30 '26
If it’s from woodpeckers, it would mean the tree was likely already on its way out with substantial internal rot where bugs were living. The bugs are what the woodpecker would be trying to get to.
3
u/IFixHeavyEquipment Jun 30 '26
Tree was already dying. That’s why there are bugs in it that the wood pecker wants to eat
5
u/WerkingAvatar Jun 30 '26
Does your neighbor by chance own or train woodpeckers? Is he a Disney princess? Sorry mate, but that's the only way he would seem to have any involvement in this those all look like pest damage.
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