Tree-sitter hauled from perch in UC Berkeley grove

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 6/17/8 | Demian Bulwa,Charles Burress

[SmithL]

BERKELEY -- One of the activists who have perched in a grove outside UC Berkeley's Memorial Stadium for the past year and a half was hauled out of her tree Tuesday, as the university began removing tree-sitters' gear in advance of a judge's ruling that could lead to a climax in the long-running protest.

The tree-sitter was taken down by two arborists who were part of a crew hired by the university to remove wooden platforms, pulley systems and other infrastructure that the protesters have built high above the ground as part of their effort to keep the university from cutting down trees to make way for an athletic training center.

Other protesters said they knew the woman taken out of a tree at 4:30 p.m. only as "Millipede." Doug Buckwald, director of a group called Save the Oaks, said she was "an experienced tree-sitter" but did not know how long she had been in the branches.

The two arborists were in a cherry-picker that banged into the trunk of the tree where the woman was perched, Buckwald said. "She screamed, and they grabbed her," he said.

As many as a dozen tree-sitters were still in the branches, 12 hours after the crew of arborists guarded by about 40 UC police officers showed up to start removing the activists' gear.

University spokesman Dan Mogulof said one of the arborists had been trying to wrap duct tape around a rope when the tree-sitter bit him on the arm. The other aborist wrestled her into the cherry picker and took her to the ground, where she was arrested, he said.

The woman had dumped a bucket of urine on two arborists earlier in the day, Mogulof said. UC police did not identify her.

The arborists and workers hired by the university dodged...

[SmithL]

Tree-sitting protesters look on as authorities cut supply lines and removed gear near Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, Calif. on Tuesday, June 17, 2008.

Onlookers watch as UC Berkeley began cutting ropes and removing gear from a grove outside of Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, Calif. on Tuesday, June 17, 2008.

A tree-sitting protester swings a wire cutter at workers as they try to shield themselves from urine being splashed at them from the tree top at a grove outside of Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, Calif. on Tuesday, June 17, 2008. Event on 6/17/08 in BERKELEY.

[dalereed]

They should have just shot them!

[lesser_satan]

I cut down about a hundred trees on my dad’s property so far this year. I pushed them into a big pile with the front loader on his tractor and burned them. I wish I had a video of it to send to these freaks, their heads would probably explode.

[steel_resolve]

I’ve been thinking about events like these in the broader context. Is this the type of PC behavior we have to engage in in order to save our republic? Have the days of harsh dealing with malcontents finally ended? Are all future confrontations going the way of these faggot tree sitters?

[sinanju]

Judging from the pithy comments on the SF Chronic’s website, the tree-sitters seemed to have lost the hearts-and-minds struggle quite some time ago.

I still don’t see what would have been so difficult about mounting 24/7 guard around the tree-sitters and simnply preventing all resupply until they were starved out?

[Global2010]

I bet she was smellin a bit over ripened.

[dfwgator]

May I suggest they use one of these:

[Mr Ramsbotham]

They should have just shot them!

All they needed to do was make a peace sign with one hand, and wave with the other.

[LibWhacker]

The tree-sitter was taken down by two arborists...

Wow, when bullets are so cheap.

[FlingWingFlyer]

Put her in a zoo! She’d be perfect in a zoo!

[utherdoul]

Just pull a Hobbit and start lighting fires underneath the trees, the stupid hippies will come down in quite a hurry and with a few scars that will hopefully remind them not to be complete retards.

[redhead]

"Put her in a zoo! She’d be perfect in a zoo!"

She needs to come up here and sit in a tree. For a year. In Central or Fairbanks. Or Ketchikan. Yeah, Ketchikan!

[ccmay]

Paintball guns would be a good way to deal with this kind of scum.

[kitchen]

Why don't they just dart them? After they fall out of the tree, put them in a cage and relocate them as is done with bears and lions. Dump 'em off while they're unconscious and they probably can't find their way back. :)

[Judges Gone Wild]

Great idea! After all, humans are the same as animals like these eco-terrorists say. I don’t see how PETA would object.

[IrishCatholic]

All they had to do was go around and girdle all the trees. Strip all the bark down to the dead wood and let the trees die.
Sooner or later the loons would get tired of being up in dead trees with no leaves.

[TheMole]

Judging from the pithy comments on the SF Chronic’s website, the tree-sitters seemed to have lost the hearts-and-minds struggle quite some time ago.

I've noticed that the comments on a few Chronicle stories resemble the opinions on here a lot more than I would have expected. Not everybody in the Bay Area is a moonbat.

[Nathan Zachary]

What a waste of good firewood.

[smedley64]

McCain should organize a mass tree cutting party all across America on the day of the election, which would force all the Obama voters away from election precincts where they don’t belong anyway, and into the trees, to protect their arboreal brothers and sisters from murder.

[yorkie01]

I’d rather she’d have been tazed off her perch.