When Bert Cooper surveyed the backyard of his Manitoulin Island property a few months ago, he was stumped: Someone had stripped the bark off his birch trees.

At first, it looked as though the culprit hit only a handful of trunks. But as the 78-year-old walked along his property, on the island that borders Georgian Bay and Lake Huron, he saw that the bark bandit was efficient and methodical — about 120 birch trees had the same two-to-three-foot section uniformly cut out.

“It was so disgusting,” he told the CBC.   Cooper isn’t the only victim of this curious caper. His neighbours have since had their trees stripped, too.   Bud Hebner of Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources says these thefts are becoming more commonplace. He believes the burglars are using the birch bark for crafts, as the unique texture of the bark is increasingly in demand.

This type of crime sure is a lot different from the news casts I watched during my trip to NYC last year.