Thieves steal rare Serbian spruce trees

Forest Enterprise is now considering installing security cameras to watch over other rare species.

The stolen trees (Picea omorika), although an extremely rare species, have no commercial value. However, their genetic material was a priceless component of the Perth and Kinross Countryside Trust’s (PKCT) Big Tree Country Conifer Conservation Programme.

The PKCT Conservation Programme is part of the world-leading International Conifer Conservation Programme (ICCP) based at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE).

The ICCP works in partnership with PKCT to conserve specimens of conifer species that are at risk of extinction in their native range.

“The climate and landscape of Perthshire are ideal for growing conifers and the area provides a very important safe haven for rare and endangered species from around the world,” said PKCT Project Officer Tom Christian.

“Each tree represents years of work organising expeditions, processing the collected seeds, growing them on and then planting them in Perthshire.

“Until these trees were stolen, we probably had the greatest concentration of these trees outside of their native range.”

He said because of the nature of these collections, the trees were irreplaceable: there is no way to recover the missing genetic material.

Forest Enterprise Scotland said the stolen trees are likely to have been killed because the thief had tried to dig them up but left most of the roots in the ground.

“Sadly, we are now in the situation where we are forced to look at where we could site wildlife cameras to protect other species in the project,” it said.