The delicate yet deadly flower, most popularly known as the venus flytrap which sits atop a long stem is now in danger in a green swamp reserve in North Carolina. Laura Gadd, a nature preserve specialist, marks them as she walks by, finding them hidden beneath wisps of wire grass. She finds a half a dozen a day, which is enough to “warrant a spray of glue and inconspicuous powder used to identify the plants and track down poachers who pluck them.” (Mike Baker, Associated Press)
One of nature’s most popular obscure plants, the venus flytrap’s ability to snatch living prey makes it a favourite of school children and plant enthusiasts alike. The flytrap’s natural habitat exists only within a few hundred miles of South Carolina’s coast, where larger more dominating plants have taken over the area. Building development and commercial growth along the North and South Carolina coast has threatened the few “sensitive and thin populations of venus flytraps that still exist in the wild.”
An AP review of state botany records found that nearly 80 percent of the 117 identified wild populations of flytraps in North Carolina have little to no chance of surviving and have either been scarce or wiped out. Most of the large clusters are in nature preserves, but most experts think the dwindling has to do with “encroaching humans.” Wildfires and logging along the Savannah are also responsible for their demise as well as poaching, since flytraps have been popular for various medical procedures around the world. Repeated poachers face misdemeanour charges and are usually only fined less than 200 dollars. Rarely do they face jail time, so it happens more than it should. The traps were once found in as many as 4 counties in South Carolina, and have now narrowed down to only one.
"When you go out looking for these populations that have been recorded, you find you're either in a golf course or a subdivision, or a road or a shopping center," James Luken, a professor at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, S.C., who studies wetland ecology, said. "It's a biological hotspot, but it's a development hotspot. These areas are being transformed as fast as the bulldozers can roll."
Due to the dwindling supply of flytraps they still aren’t actually considered endangered, since there are so many other plants ahead of them “on the waiting list.” Representative Carolyn Justice, a Republican who represents the Wilmington area, has pushed to begin regulating flytraps in the same fashion as ginseng in the past, a plant used for a variety of herbal needs in Eastern medicines. But legislation has stalled to take action for now. "Our population down here is exploding," Justice said. "And as we encroach on these forests, we encroach on (the flytrap). We just need to be real careful monitoring how these are harvested and sold."
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