Unless you live in an area surrounded with beautiful maple trees, or live in Canada, you are most likely unaware of the possible theft of maple syrup. Just months after the greatest maple syrup theft in history was resolved in Canada comes a new alarming story for those in the Northeastern United States. Hey Canadians, don’t start feeling all safe because your trees may be in danger too.

Yes, the theft of maple syrup continues. There has been a rash of reports of maple trees being illegally tapped in Maine. As reported in www.montrealgazette.com.

Property owners have reported holes bored in their trees and buckets, plastic containers and sometimes, even PVC pipes attached to collect the sweet watery sap.

Of course, you’d need a heck of a lot of the sap to make something out of it because the ratio of sap to syrup is 40:1. You need 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup.

On average, one mature sugar maple tree produces up to 10 gallons of sap a year. It hardly seems worth the effort. After all, maple syrup is not that expensive to buy.

This small-scale thievery pales in comparison to Quebec’s record $20-million theft of thousands of gallons of refined maple syrup out of a warehouse in 2012.

Not only is it against the law to steal the sap out of someone else’s trees, but the tapping by thieves is damaging trees that might otherwise be destined for furniture. With large bore holes marring the wood, the trees can only be used for pulp.

Would stop theft classes administered during childhood keep thieves from pursuing this type of theft? It has been proven that theft behavior begins early. If we can use online theft education classes to instill the basic premise that stealing is wrong and provide ways for kids to use their energy in a positive direction the world will be a better place.