'Somebody is trying to kill our trees': Saskatoon residents discover mysterious holes drilled in trees

SASKATOON -

Residents in Saskatoon’s Avalon neighbourhood are scratching their heads after eight trees were found with holes drilled into their trunks.

“I’ve never heard of anything like this happening in this neighborhood even though I’ve had a connection with the neighbourhood for 66 years,” said Jan Sedgewick.

She and a few other neighbours discovered the city trees on their properties had holes drilled into the bottom of their trunks and filled with a strange liquid.

Sedgewick believes someone was intentionally trying to damage the trees along Hanover Avenue.

“Vandalism is what it is, somebody is trying to kill our trees, change our neighbourhood and it’s not their right to do that.”

The City of Saskatoon’s urban forestry and parks department learned of damage this week.

“We do have instances of this occurring every year, we do run into trees being intentionally poisoned or damaged, but this is the first time we’ve seen this many in one incident,” said operations manager Konrad Andre.

“Having eight is unprecedented.”

Andre said city crews inspected the damaged trees and gathered samples of the liquid for testing.

Glyphosate or weed killer is commonly found in these instances, he said.

“It might take until next year to see if there’s any damage but, we certainly hope not, but it might take a bit of time to find out,” he said.

While Sedgewick doesn’t know who tried to harm her trees, she does have theories as to why someone would try to kill the trees on the block.

“People don’t like leaves in the fall and there’s a lot of leaves, I have two big ash trees,” she said.

“Maybe someone was upset that I hadn’t raked my leaves and my leaves were blowing into their yard, but talk to me, if that’s the situation, or even help me.”

Andre said the city is working with police in its investigation.