Video1: Poached Venus’ flytraps are replanted back in Nature. According to StarNewsOnline.com, “Venus flytraps are marked in the wild, [so] if they turn up for sale, inspectors are able to identify the plants as illegally dug up and removed.”
Video2: David Attenborough in “The Private Life of Plants” studies the flytrap, and I believe he did so in Green Swamp.
Venus’ flytrap, a species of carnivorous plant, is endemic to the Carolinas, and some areas like the Green Swamp Preserve, which is located in southeast North Carolina, is home to several types of carnivorous plants including pitcher plants and sundews.
The flytrap is “adopted as the official carnivorous plant of the State of North Carolina,”[*] and law protects it: “No person, firm or corporation shall dig up, pull up or take from the land of another or from any public domain, the whole or any part of any Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula).”[*] Despite state laws, poachers target unique plant species to make money, but poaching threatens the survival of many species of carnivorous plants and orchids, since poaching disturbs and destroys habitat. Furthermore, many of these plants are very difficult to keep in captivity. From StarNewsOnline.com:
A favorite of Charles Darwin and famous all over the world, the Venus’ flytrap is a native of our area. Unsuspecting local bugs land on its comfortable leaves and before they know it, they’re swallowed up.
But these curious carnivorous plants can’t defend themselves from human poachers, who steal hundreds at a time from their natural habitat and sell them to people who may not know how to grow them properly. On Tuesday, about 1,000 poached Venus’ flytraps had a happier day as they returned home to the Green Swamp Preserve.
A group of 15 volunteers and staff members with the Nature Conservancy and the N.C. Botanical Garden replanted the flytraps in the Brunswick County preserve. Poachers had taken them from the area about a year ago, but the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission recovered them, said Dan Ryan, a project director with the Nature Conservancy.
Also, about 500 pitcher plants, another carnivorous species, would be replanted later in the day, Ryan said. The type of soil in the Green Swamp is ideal for carnivorous plants because it’s acidic, wet and nutrient-poor, according to Michael Kunz, a conservation ecologist with the N.C. Botanical Garden.
The lack of nutrients has forced the plants to adapt by eating bugs for their nitrogen fix, Kunz said. It’s hard to raise these plants out of their habitat because they need a specific ratio of soil components.
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On the Net: Nearly 80 percent of flytrap populations unlikely to survive
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