I Have A Neighbor Cutting Trees Down On My Property.

Location: Lincoln County, NC

We live in NC and I was alerted to an issue by another neighbor on Friday Night. He said that it appears someone was cutting out a spot to hunt from on my property. This neighbor and I talk and he feels the same way I do, nobody has permission to be on my land nor his and we watch out for each other's property. I run hunters off of both of our land every year. But cutting trees down has got me pretty livid. We have roughly 13 acres that our house sits on.

So of course Friday evening by the time I got home it was dark but I went to take a look anyway. There were some trees cut but not just in one spot, there is a trail. All about the same size or a few different sizes. I was pretty sure I knew who was doing it at that time. But It was late and I wanted to see it in the daylight. We had plans for a trip Saturday so it had to wait until this morning.

I went out early to look and it appears that they have been cutting the trees down with a hatchet. There is a trail along with some outliers. So I start looking around and follow the trail to a different neighbors property that backs up to mine. There is a pretty decent sized stack of trees in three stacks by size. Probably close to 50 trees between 2 inch and 6 inch diameter. Some of these may have came from their property some definitely came from mine and some of the ones they cut are still laying there. I did put up a trail cam near a tree they had started cutting. Mainly it appears they are targeting poplar trees. EDIT: More looking in better light, they are maple trees and oaks.

There is absolutely no chance they think they are on their property because the property lines are marked and they even uncovered corner pins so they knew they were past it. Way past it. Almost to the other side of my property. At least 200 feet past the line.

Here is my question, do I go ahead and call the Sheriffs department and make a report an attorney?

Should I go talk to the neighbor directly about it?

I know there I may be able to go after damages but that is not what I am after necessarily. If its a kid trying to build a fort or something I kind of want it to be a teaching moment. Maybe get them to plant some new trees or something. If its an adult they should know better.

The thing is I don't know how this will all go with this neighbor. They only time I have talked to them was when their dogs went after my family and I as we were walking down the road. It was not a real bad situation, the dogs did not bite us and they apologized but..

The funny thing about this is that it appears they are having an issue with their other neighbor because they are building a big privacy fence yet they decided to cross into mine.

I'm going to go on about my day while I think about this but wanted some advise from the legal side and what you all think.

EDIT: For clarification. I do not think this is for hunting purposes. It appears they are harvesting trees of a specific size for some reason. They are stacking them in their yard. I doubt hunting but it still could be.