On an 80-acre patch of boggy black spruce swamp outside the small northeast Minnesota town of Babbitt, the telltale signs of a unique North Woods crime are everywhere.
“You kind of have to look close,” said Anthony Bermel, a conservation officer with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources who patrols this area. “But as you look around at most of these black spruce trees, a lot of them are stubby, they’re missing tops.”
Some trees have been cut close to the ground, leaving short stumps. Elsewhere, the top two to four feet of young spruce trees have been lopped off.
“So these are all fresh cuts. It’s still kind of sticky to the touch,” said Bermel, who earlier this year arrested Blake Buschman of Babbitt, 37, who was charged with felony theft for illegally cutting more than 5,000 spruce tops here, on private and adjacent St. Louis County land.
It’s not the first time he’s apprehended Buschman. “I’ve caught him over and over and over and over and over again over the years,” Bermel said.