Authorities are looking for the people responsible for vandalizing saguaro, prickly pear, and cholla cacti in Saguaro National Park.
The damaged cacti were found on Saturday evening in the park’s ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Mountains Unit, west of downtown ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥, the National Park Service said in a news release Monday.
Park officials are asking for the public’s help in finding the vandal or vandals. Anyone with information can call the park’s tip line at 733-5118.
The ages of the nine damaged saguaros, which were found along the Gould Mine Trail, ranged from about 30 years old to about 150 years old, said park spokeswoman Andy Fisher.
Several of the younger cacti were cut down completely, she said. The cutting instrument damaged the older cacti, but did not cut them down.
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The park was set up to protect the slow-growing saguaros and “it’s a shame the work of so many is undone by so few,†Fisher said.
In other local cacti vandalism cases, a teenager was arrested in 2013 on a felony count of vandalism for spray-painting 11 cacti and 30 other objects, such as rocks, posts and signs in Saguaro National Park East.
Also in 2013, surveillance photos showed two men who damaged a saguaro, sheared off the tops of two barrel cacti, and cut branches from a palo verde tree. The men turned themselves in and faced up to six months in prison and a $5,000 fine.
They pleaded guilty in 2014 to misdemeanor vandalism charges and were sentenced to one year of probation. They each were required to pay $458 in restitution and complete 30 hours of community service. The federal judge also ordered them to chop a half-cord of wood with an axe.