Petrified "Forest"

What’s happened to Petrified Forest National Park? I’ve heard of environmentalists’ concern for deforestation, but I wouldn’t have expected something similar to be occurring with trees turned into fossils. However, this seems to be the case. When I visited the Petrified Forest NP last Friday, I certainly couldn’t see the forest for the trees—because there weren’t enough to make a forest. I didn’t drive through the entire park, so maybe I missed a large conglomeration of tumbled tree trunks, but from what I’ve read, I evidently missed them because of when, not where, I went. Had I gone 100 years ago or 50 years ago--or make that even 1 year ago--I could have seen more. A New York Times article from 1999 talks about the vandalism of protected petrified wood. According to one study, every year the amount of petrified wood at the Arizona park decreases by 12 tons. Apparently, the signs one sees as leaving the park, telling visitors that their vehicles may be searched, do have some effect: hundreds of pounds are found by the signs in summer months. Even wood that makes it past the park exit sometimes returns. The article mentions that “[i]n September alone, 25 pounds of rocks were mailed back by people with guilty consciences.” In 1984, one man believed his theft of petrified wood had somehow cursed him, causing his car to be wrecked and his wife to leave him. Even though returning the wood may help bring peace of mind to vandals, it doesn’t fix the loss at the park, for rangers are not allowed to replace the wood since this would be changing the natural location of it and potentially causing problems for researchers conducting studies at the park. Even with the pillaging, tree fossils at the NP should be around for a long time, and layers of petrified wood exist under the ground. I wouldn’t travel to Arizona just to see fossilized timber (an Arizona tourism Website mentions that every state has deposits of petrified wood), but if you’re going along I-40 in the Grand Canyon State, it’s worth a stop. Even one tree would still be amazing to see.