Red Car Property: Stop Cutting Down Protected Native Trees Without Permits

Photo: Diane Edwardson, September 26, 2014.  Thursday, someone cut down another protected native Southern California Black Walnut Tree on the Red Car Property, this time adjacent to a home on Adelbert Ave that was recently up for sale.  (Click on photos to enlarge.)

This tree was definitely on the Red Car Property near the "Adelbert trail cut-through" was still intact on Thursday morning, before brush clearance was done on 2 Red Car Property lots.   It was the only tree cut down on Thursday.  (The incident was reported to the Dept. of Urban Forestry.)

The dead Eucalyptus are all still standing just a stones throw from here.  The Black Walnut was a large multi-trunked tree that was doing quite well despite the drought.  Other trees in the area have not fared well.  People seem to have something against healthy native trees this year. 

Photo: Diane Edwardson, September 26, 2014.  Native trees help hold our crumbling slopes together, especially here in the Adelbert Landslide Zone. They evolved for our soil and drought conditions.  

Southern California Black Walnuts are a sensitive plant species disappearing from our local slopes.  The tree was just upslope from the Riverside Drive lots where more than a dozen Black Walnuts were clear cut just a few weeks ago.

Photo: Diane Edwardson, November 18, 2012.  A quick search of my recent archives turned up this photo of the same tree showing it was indeed a Black Walnut.  (This part of the Red Car Property is usually so overgrown & green, year round, that it is hard to distinguish individual trees unless you catch them in the fall when they're dropping their leaves.) 

Read the City of LA's: Protected Native Tree Ordinance

More info on permits for removing protected native trees: City Of LA Dept of Urban Forestry