ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. -- The latest attack at the Castillo de San Marcos may have been on its own trees.
"That tree is screaming," Danny Lippi said. He is an arborist with Advanced Tree Care.
The palm trees on the fort property used have round tops with lots of fronds. Now, each tree has just a few fronds sticking out of the top of the trunk.
"These are the Florida state tree," Lippi stated. "These are called sable palms also known as cabbage palms."
After First Coast News received concerns from viewers about how drastically the trees had been trimmed, we asked Lippi to look at them.
"This is really aggressive. Usually, when they over-prune, it's not as bad as this," he said.
A spokesman with the fort told me the National Park staff trimmed 85 trees around the Castillo de San Marcos over the last few weeks in order to prepare for hurricane season.
"This is done a lot. Done a lot," Lippi nodded, speaking about how people in general prune palm trees.
Lippi said it's an old-school approach to trimming palms. But he says research actually shows this makes the palms more susceptible to wind damage.
Lippi said research has shown that "the more leaves you have on a tree or palm, the less overall movement there is on the tree or the palm. And the more you shave it up or thin it out, the more total movement there is on the palm. That can cause it to break or fail."
The fort spokesman said the brown fronds were trimmed to keep them from falling and possibly hurting people and damaging property. But several arborists say the park staff cut many more fronds than just the brown ones.
Lippi said that kind of pruning of the state tree is not necessary and it's even illegal in parts of Florida.
"The pruners in Palm Coast, had it been done there, would've gotten a fine as well as the client," Lippi noted.
Lippi said if a tree trimmer wants to do this to your trees, he just wants some green. "Pretty much the only reason do to his is to make money ... They just they might not know," he said.
While the fort spokesperson says this kind of trimming has been successful in the past at the park, this arborist is concerned the trees around the fort may not make it through the next hurricane.
"Honestly, it doesn't get much worse than that," Lippi said.