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Federal prosecutors said in the spring and summer of 2018, a team of poachers cut down trees at night in the Olympic National Forest in Washington State.
On August 3, they came across the wasp’s nest.
It was at the base of a large-leaved maple, a type of hardwood with a shimmering grain that is prized for its use in violins, guitars, and other musical instruments. Prosecutors said the crew sold large-leaf maples to a mill in Tumwater using false permits. Tree cutting is prohibited in the forest, which is a vast wilderness of nearly one million acres.
The timber hunters sprayed the nest with pesticides and possibly gasoline and burned it, officials said. However, prosecutors said they fled because they could not put out the fire with water bottles.
Prosecutors said the fire had spread from the forested Elk Lake area, near Hood Channel, and burned 3,300 acres and cost about $4.2 million to contain. It came to be known as Maple Fire.
Prosecutors said Monday that 39-year-old Justin Andrew Wilke, the leader of the illegal operation, was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison. In July, a jury convicted Mr Wilke of conspiracy, theft of public property and smuggling illegally harvested timber, according to a court of law, among other charges. Declaration From the US Attorney for the Western District of Washington.
Specifically, the jury did not convict him of fire-related charges, even though prosecutors claimed that he was directly involved. Mr Wilke might not have been convicted of other charges had it not been for a relatively new technique that uses tree DNA as evidence.
Prosecutors said this is the first time such evidence has been used in a federal criminal case, although it has been used in state cases and non-trial federal cases. The researchers hope this will deter future poaching, especially of large-leaf maples, for which there is now a large database.
Prosecutors said two members of the poaching group stood next to Mr. Wilke when the nest caught fire and appeared to have set the fire.
According to the statement, “However, since the fire was started at night, they could not see exactly what it was doing and stated that they did not know exactly how the fire started.” “The jury did not convict Wilke of two federal charges related to the wildfire: burning timber and using fire to further a crime.”
Mr Wilke’s lawyer said on Tuesday that his client had always claimed that he did not cause the fire, and that the jury’s acquittal on those charges reflected this.
“As the criminal papers reflect, Mr. Wilke has worked hard over the past three years to create a future for himself,” Gregory Murphy, a federal public defender, said in an email. “He can’t wait to get past this prosecution.”
Shawn Williams, a member of the logging team, prisoner Until September 2020, 30 months after pleading guilty to theft of public property and lighting a timber fire, Seth Wilkinson, the US assistant attorney, said in an email.
Prosecutors had proposed a three-year prison sentence for Mr Wilke, naming him the ringleader of the group, but while sentencing, a judge said he had “made positive strides during pre-trial release and jail time was more difficult during the Covid pandemic”. to the explanation.
According to the statement, Mr. Wilke will also be required to forfeit his income from poaching and to pay compensation to the US Forest Service in an amount to be determined at a later hearing.
A government research geneticist testified at the trial that wood that Mr Wilke had sold to a mill genetically matched three boiled maple trees that researchers found in the Elk Lake area.
From the US Forest Service, Dr. Richard Cronn said in a phone call Tuesday night that trees, like all living organisms, have DNA.
Dr. “They get a set of chromosomes from their mom and dad,” said Cronn. “This makes it possible to uniquely distinguish every tree out there if we have the appropriate genetic markers.”
In this case, the researchers specially created a DNA database. Olympic National ForestDr. By sampling 230 trees and estimating that the probability of a random match is one in one decillion—or one, followed by 36 zeros,’ Cronn said.
Dr. One limitation of this technique’s more widespread use in criminal prosecutions is the need to create databases for individual tree species, Cronn said. This can be costly and time-consuming, he said, but added that advances in genomic technology have made it easier.
“If you think about a forensic human database, you’re only doing it for one species,” he said. “Trees targeted for lumber theft across the US are really different. There’s maple in the Pacific Northwest, walnut in the eastern US. We’re going to need a database for each of the species, so that’s a bit of a hindrance.”
Dr. In this case, using tree DNA would be a deterrent against similar thefts, Cronn said.
He said the researchers created a large-leaved maple database of more than 1,100 tree samples that spanned an area “basically stretching from the US-Mexico border to Vancouver Island and Canada.”
Dr. “When any tree is taken in this range it can now be investigated,” said Cronn. “We’ll be ready at the next hearing.”
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