Mushroom Foraging/Theft...a fine line?

[RancocasRover]

First let me say, I know or knew nothing about wild mushrooms. Early this morning two men in two pick up trucks stopped in front of my house and harvested several large mushrooms from the base of a large curbside oak. By the time I got dressed and got outside one truck left but I was able to ask the other driver with the shrooms in his truck what they were doing. He told me they were taking mushrooms and and I asked why and he said they were to eat.
I know that the piece of ground between sidewalk and curb is public property, but I am responsible for maintaining the land and the plants etc. I didn't care about the mushrooms but on principle I would expect the courtesy to ask before taking. We got into a pissing match where I was lecturing him about not being allowed to take plants and stuff, he points out it's public property not mine which led me to ask what was to stop ANYONE from deciding to come and take down that big oak without permission, or dig up mums or bulbs that I plant at the base of the tree. He says, I don't want your tree, flowers etc. He encouraged me to call the cops on him and he also offered to let me keep the mushrooms. Anyway it was a stupid argument and one of those things that made me unnecessarily really pissed off about something I really don't care about (mushrooms). Truly if he had knocked on the door and asked I would have been happy to have him take them.
Of course I get online as soon as I come back inside, I'm pretty sure what they took was hen-of-the-woods aka maitake. Restaurants pay as much as $15/lb and there was probably 20-40 lbs taken from my curb. I also found that going all the way back to Scottish law that foraging for personal consumption on ANY property is legal however foraging for re-sale is not. Two guys in two pick-ups are not hunting for personal consumption and next year I'm going to make some $$$ from my fungi.
Any mushroom foragers or people interested in property rights etc care to offer there perspective here? Thanks

 

[Boyd]

20 to 40 pounds from the ground next to your curb??? How many square feet are we taking about? That's a LOT of mushrooms!

 

[Spung-Man]

RR,

I miss the time when there were few “No Trespassing” signs to be found in the Pine Barrens. It was the norm to hunt, pick mushrooms, gather spring greens, snag herring, and cut smoke-hickory on any land. Even today I refuse to post my property, even though the Township repeatedly encroached upon my place for Richland redevelopment – without notice or permission. It just goes against the grain of being a good neighbor.

My grandmother was expert at mushroom hunting, as were many southern and eastern European transplants. It is our heritage to forage, although personally I find it easier to plug oak logs with mushroom spores. It never crossed my mind to deny neighbors like Pepé access to my property when they gathered hen-of-the-woods, or Kingfish access to my hickory stands when he needed fuel for the rib stand.

Last night I picked a milk pail full of sand hickory nuts from the Resting Tree at my property’s edge (http://udel.edu/~mdemitrf/UDel_Web_9-4-12/1.html). The nut meat is tiny but sweet, oily, and flavorful. Two neighbor’s passed by, each on separate forays along the tracks, and I invited both to join in to share nature’s bounty. Everyone’s been gathering nuts here for at least two centuries, and I am only a brief steward of this communal resource.

S-M

 

[GermanG]

I’ve dealt with this issue more than a few times, although not on the public easements in front of homes, but rather on larger public properties, namely parks. In most cases the regulations are phrased in a sweeping fashion, banning removal of any plant material. Picking blueberries, mushrooms, etc., is usually not a harmful activity, as long as not being done on a commercial level, and would be overlooked by most enforcement types. But the laws would be too burdensome if written in a nitpicking fashion to specify each and every specific species or plant part than could or couldn’t be collected. So in order to protect the resource for everyone, collecting most everything is technically prohibited, excepting for legal hunting, fishing, permit-woodcutting, etc. We can only hope that those enforcing the rules use common sense and discretion when it comes to harmless foraging. Almost all do, but one occasionally encounters the hard case. Things were much better when most of the people enforcing the rules in parks and forests were also outdoorsmen but that’s sadly no longer the case.

 

[RancocasRover]

On some other websites specifically for mushroom foraging I've read guidelines for responsible foraging as a rule of thumb not to harvest more than 30% of any particular site. These guys took 100%. Anyway I'm not really upset about the mushrooms so much as this guy's attitude and interpretation of the law was that if I planted a sapling on my curb (which I plan to do in the spot where the township removed a diseased oak) he could up root it and take it home and plant it or whatever he wants.

Spung-Man, those nuts look wonderful.

What else gets foraged in the region? Mushroom hunting is something I could get into, another excuse to enjoy our beautiful woods.