MONKTON, Vt. -
From tree to tree in Monkton you can see the Linehan Maple Farm securing sap. But one morning there was no container to collect it.
"My husband went down the road and he just happened to notice it was missing," Janice Linehan said.
The sap container had been stolen, empty of sap, but heavy in value.
"It was a $200 tank," Linehan said.
Linehan isn't the only victim to maple equipment thefts. A recent robbery in Westminster saw sap buckets stolen. But this isn't something new for the Linehan's.
"One night we heard a truck take off," Linehan said.
"Wake up. Tank gone."
"It is something for sugar makers to be vigilant about," Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Association Executive Director Matt Gordon said.
Gordon says stolen equipment isn't a huge problem but it does happen from time to time.
"If anything looks suspicious or anything has gone missing check the woods where you're sugaring," Gordon said.
But with sap pipe mazes that go on for miles it's tough to look over everything in the maple industry.
"Unless you want to put cameras out there everywhere there is no way," Linehan said.
Instead the Linehans have put locks and chains on their tanks as well as their initials. It marks what's theirs and what they rely on.
"For a lot of people this is their livelihood," Gordon said.
"So if their equipment suddenly disappears and the sap's running and they can't collect it and boil it down, that's not just an inconvenience for them that's possibly their income for the year."
