Barking Up the Wrong Tree in Angeles Forest : Environment: Rangers keep their eyes open for people who twist off cedar branches, chop down pines or chain-saw trees for firewood without a permit.

SAN GABRIEL MOUNTAINS —  Ten pine cones are OK, fallen not picked. Or a manzanita branch--dead, of course. No problem with mistletoe, if it’s only a grocery bag full.

But forget about decking the halls with boughs of holly from the Angeles National Forest or trimming a tree from the San Gabriel Mountains on Christmas Eve or any other time during the holidays.

During the holiday season, U.S. Forest Service rangers are on the lookout for city folks who twist off cedar branches, chop down pines or chain-saw trees for firewood without a permit.

Rangers have posted signs along the highways in the forest. On patrols, they hand out a list of up-for-dibs forest souvenirs--a few pine cones, for instance--and watch for telltale signs of no-nos, such as a Christmas tree poking out of a car trunk.

This year, rangers have issued 13 citations for cutting down Christmas trees and three citations for stealing holly or other potential Christmas decorations.

The citations carry a potential $500 fine and six-month jail sentence.

“A lot of people get the idea that the forest is here as a free resource. Whatever you need--boulders or trees or sand--it’s there for the taking,” said U.S. Forest Service patrolman Bob Libershal. “We want the forest to be here for people to enjoy and feel it’ll always be here for them. It’s their forest. We’re just here to protect it.”

That means playing the bad guy sometimes. Like the time a troop of Cub Scouts was loading a pickup truck full of mistletoe to bag and sell at grocery stores. It’s OK to take a few, but not bunches and not for resale. So Libershal had no choice. Dump your load, please, he told them.

“I felt like the Grinch who stole somebody’s Christmas,” he said. But he didn’t issue a citation because he felt the group was simply making a mistake.

Libershal conceded that Forest Service guidelines don’t make much sense to visitors who can’t understand why it’s allowed to take one yucca stalk but no more. For people who want more, the Forest Service issues permits for a small fee as a way of controlling the area and amount of plant or natural material that people can forage.

“It’s a line we have to draw,” he said.

In a 693,000-acre forest, it’s hard to convince people that one uprooted tree or one plucked wildflower makes a difference. But it does--that scraggly “Charlie Brown” Christmas tree was planted by the highway to help prevent erosion, and that pretty lily is nearly extinct because hikers can’t resist its delicate flower.

Plus, rangers have little firepower on patrol. They can issue citations to people they catch in the act of chopping a tree, but they have no authority to pull over a car that is whizzing by with an 8-foot white fir strapped on top. All they can do is radio the car’s location to a dispatcher, who calls a sheriff’s deputy or a Forest Service peace officer. Confiscated trees are donated to nonprofit groups.

About two dozen rangers patrol the sprawling forest for poachers, but they’re also dealing with rescues, accidents, fires and litter. They don’t patrol much after dark, when a lot of people sneak into the forest with pruning shears and axes. Rangers rely on regulars and local residents who keep an eye out for tree thieves and freshly cut tree stumps.

“We’re sure there’s a lot of stuff that goes on here that we don’t know about,” Libershal said. “We have no idea how many trees are taken.”

Libershal, a 14-year veteran of forest patrols, knows the landscape so well in his Tujunga Ranger District that when something is amiss--a single tree, for instance--he instinctively stops his truck for a closer look. He also watches for tire tracks and footprints down dirt roads that lead to thickets of pines so pretty that they look like inviting Christmas tree lots. But the thickets are there for a reason.

On a recent morning, Libershal pulled his truck off a dirt road near Alder Creek in Upper Big Tujunga Canyon, where a light wind was flattening the needles on 10 acres of pine trees surrounded by chaparral and buckwheat. The area is called a “plantation,” a place where the Forest Service plants trees to replace those felled by brush fire, disease, pollution or other causes.

Near Alder Creek, a brush fire wiped out a forest of pine trees in 1979. Rangers and volunteers are trying to replenish the area by planting 4-inch-tall pine tree sprigs protected in a coil of plastic mesh. In the summer, volunteers bring buckets of water up the mountain so the baby trees don’t get too dry. With luck, in 15 years or so, the trees will grow 6- to 8-feet tall--prime Christmas tree height.

“It just doesn’t happen automatically,” Libershal said about the tree-nurturing efforts, “and someone comes along and just haphazardly, to save a few bucks.”

The bright spots in his patrol are in the campgrounds, when he sees campers who have the right idea about the forest’s Christmas trees. They festoon the natural trees with tinsel, bulbs and strings of popcorn, and when it’s time to go home, they pack up the decorations--and leave the tree behind.