Flytrap poachers face stiff penalties

The good news behind the recent arrests of suspected plant poachers in Brunswick County is that local prosecutors and law officers are taking the Venus’ flytrap seriously.

It may be just in time.

The tiny, humble flytrap, to the delight of small boys, is the closest thing Nature has come up with to match the Audrey II of “Little Shop of Horrors.”

It doesn’t devour Broadway actors but its modified leaf lobes will snap shut on tiny bugs that land on them, slowly devouring them. Other insectivorous plants, like the pitcher plant, trap bugs passively, but the flytrap … gobbles. Vincent Price would have loved them.

The colonial governor Arthur Dobbs, who lived in the great manor Russelborough down by Brunswick Town, found the little flytraps in the 1750s and described them as “the greatest wonder of the vegetable kingdom.”

Naturalist William Bartram, who had kinfolk up in Bladen County, collected samples to ship to England. Charles Darwin, who encountered the flytrap somewhat later, called it “one of the most wonderful plants in the world.”

Wonderful, and rare. Although it can be, and is, cultivated elsewhere, for some reason, flytraps will grow in Nature only within a 60-mile radius of Wilmington, which includes portions of Horry County. Even here, they’re becoming scarce as the bogs they prefer are steadily being turned into farm fields and subdivisions.

Like the longleaf pine, flytraps rely on periodic woods fires to grow. If there’s no burning, shrubs will spring up and crowd the tiny plants out. These days, humans are interfering with these natural fire cycles.

Then there’s poaching. Some estimates claim that as few as 35,000 flytraps are left in the wild. Which is why reports that 1,000 or more flytraps were stolen off Orton Plantation not long ago are so alarming.

The fact is, until recently, flytrap poaching was a quick, fairly easy way to make a buck. All you had to do was dig up the little bulbs the plants grow from and throw them into a pillowcase or sack. Unscrupulous dealers will pay for them, and while the return isn’t great, it was more rewarding than collecting bottles or cans from the road.

Local naturalists say flytraps are stolen off private property almost on a weekly basis. Even the flytrap sanctuary behind Alderman School, named for the late Stanley Rehder, has been looted from time to time.

Flytraps have been protected by state law since the 1950s, but until last year, the top penalty was a $50 fine. Not surprisingly, the few poachers brought into court often turned out to be repeat offenders.

Rehder, the region’s beloved “Flytrap Man,” who extolled the plant’s wonders on “The Today Show” and elsewhere, campaigned vainly for years to get the poaching penalties increased.

Credit goes to state Rep. Ted Davis of New Hanover County, who – after an especially egregious flytrap theft – pushed a bill through the General Assembly to make flytrap poaching a Class H felony. That means offenders, if convicted, can get up to 25 months in state prison.

In South Carolina, poaching flytraps is a misdemeanor punishable by a $200 fine for each plant or 30 days in jail.

In time, enough arrests and enough convictions should spread the word that the new risks in flytrap poaching aren’t worth the rewards.

Meanwhile, those of us who love flytraps – if we want to buy any – should question dealers closely about where they get their merchandise. Buy only from a legitimate commercial grower who isn’t plundering the countryside.

This story was originally published December 11, 2015 at 9:30 AM with the headline "Flytrap poachers face stiff penalties."