One question has lingered on Koru Dojo owner David Lynch's mind since Sunday, but the answer remains elusive.

'Why on earth would anyone want to vandalise a 300-year-old kauri tree?” he asks.

Whitianga local David Lynch discovered someone had vandalised a 300-year-old kauri tree on his property last Sunday. Photo: Koru Dojo/Facebook

Last Sunday morning David discovered someone had trespassed onto his 70 acre Whitianga property and carved the words ‘DAMI DOODLE' across the trunk of the three-century-old kauri.

'It's extremely disappointing,” says David, 'this kauri is quite a significant tree to us and it's now bleeding and I'm not too sure how to heal it or what I can do.”

Another burning question for David: why would anyone go through the amount of effort required?

'The person would've jumped a fence, trespassed onto my property, crossed a river and climbed up the hill to get to the kauri.

'It just seems a damn ridiculous thing to do, I can't make out the mentality of the person or the act. They've gone to a lot of effort to do something incredibly stupid.”

David and his wife Hisae have owned the Whitianga property for the past 18 years and this is the first act of vandalism the couple have suffered.

He says they've been trying to preserve the 70ac block which is nearly all native bush and is home to many native birds like wild kiwi.

The couple have also been in talks with the Coromandel Kauri Dieback Forum about how to protect the tree from the kauri dieback disease which is ravaging trees across the Coromandel.

'We've been making sure our visitors clean their footwear and have talked about constructing a walkway around the base so we don't tread on the tree's roots. But to find someone had vandalised the tree, it made me hopping mad to be quite honest.”

After a bit of online sleuthing David believes he's discovered the vandal and has passed on the information to Whitianga Police when he reported the crime on Monday.

'He's obviously not a very bright person,” says David.