New Hampshire Growing Square Trees!

I was totally fooled by this April Fools joke that NHPR and The Society For the Protection of New Hampshire Forest pulled the other day. I started off by writing this blog post...

The Society For the Protection of New Hampshire Forests announced an amazing development yesterday on a NHPR radio program. The Forest Society explained that this is a huge development that has been perfected through the use of Market Assisted Selection, and will allow loggers to haul 25% more trees per truckload, thereby saving tons of fuel every year. There is also a lot less waste with square trees, and they said they'll probably even be able to grow 2x4's one day. The Forest Society also says that these square trees take up more carbon.

The Sierra Club is doubtful of the benefits from these new square trees, and pellet makers are shocked at this new strain of tree, as it could possibly put them out of business since they make their pellets out of the waste from trees. Even the Forest Society admits that these trees might make it hard for squirrels to out run predators when they try to spiral up the trees because of their new corners, and it will change New Hampshire's landscape... leaving treehuggers feeling square.

By the time I typed the last sentence of this blog I figured this was much too silly to be true, and then I realized what the date was yesterday! It's funny that I was tricked by this story, but they did a very good job of masking their trick, using real issues and concerns such as carbon uptake, MAS (Market Assisted Selection), rising fuel costs and pollution.

I called Jack Savage, the VP Communications at the Forest Society to confirm my suspicion that I was duped, and he confirmed it. Jack also brought up an interesting point that we've gotten to the point that growing square trees could actually be believable! He also mentioned how interesting it is to think about this scenario even further, and examine how something like square trees could actually have real benefits as well as real unforeseen consequences that could really disrupt whole eco-systems, such as with the squirrels not being able to escape predators.

Even though it was just a trick, it was an interesting learning experience to say the least!