EAGAN — Authorities are looking for vandals who apparently are trying to kill trees in Lebanon Hills Regional Park in Eagan.

The vandals have stripped bark from several trees in the southern Twin Cities park. The group Minnesota Off-Road Cyclists discovered the damage last week and notified the Dakota County Parks Department.

The trees were “girdled,” meaning someone cut through the bark around the trunk. Girdling almost always results in the death of a tree and is sometimes used by foresters to thin out forests. But in other instances, people have girdled trees as acts of vandalism or to poach trees for the wood.

Dakota County parks director Steve Sullivan tells the St. Paul Pioneer Press  as many as six trees have been vandalized. Sullivan says the motive is unclear.