Native Venus flytraps face poaching threat in North Carolina

Venus flytraps are facing danger from poachers on the North Carolina coast — a primary location where the plant grows in the wild.

The Venus flytrap is the official carnivorous plant of North Carolina and grows within a 75-mile radius of Wilmington, which stretches into northeastern South Carolina.

Debbie Crane, spokesperson for the North Carolina chapter of The Nature Conservancy, said the plant is special to the state.

“In North Carolina our rarest, most charismatic species is this tiny plant that eats flies and other bugs,” Crane said. “It only lives in this tiny area and when it’s gone, it’s gone.”

Crane said the flytraps have international interest and are sold in stores around the world.

“We get calls from people who have flown here to see the flytraps,” Crane said. “There’s a certain cool factor to it.”

Johnny Randall, conservation director at the North Carolina Botanical Garden, said there has always been some degree of poaching but it has increased significantly in the past few years.

“A petition has been submitted to the Fish and Wildlife Service to list the plant as endangered, which is a big deal,” Randall said. “That would certainly allow more regulatory actions to be used against any poachers.”

Randall said poached Venus flytraps are most likely being sold to greenhouses or for the extraction of elements for medicinal purposes.

The drug Carnivora derives its main component from a particular type of Venus flytrap. The drug claims to be an immune system booster.

Sgt. Brandon Dean, spokesperson for the law enforcement division of the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, said officers from the group can charge poachers they catch due to the statewide jurisdiction against stealing the plants.

“You can’t remove them unless you have written permission from the land owner, and a lot of these are being taken off of state property,” Dean said.

Dean said poachers get away more often than they’re caught and there is a large black market for the sale of Venus flytraps.

“The estimated population (of Venus flytraps) is 35,000,” Dean said. “It’s not going to take long for 35,000 flytraps to be poached when you catch them with 1,000 traps at a time.”

Crane said collecting the plants from their natural habitat is hard work.

“These are tiny little plants, and you have to get down on your knees and stumble around in not very good conditions,” Crane said. “I think (poachers) are selling them for about 25 cents a plant.”

Crane said it would be a shame to see something so important to the heritage of North Carolina disappear.

“It’s just an amazing thing that’s right in our backyard,” Crane said. “There’s a lot of passion around this because it’s ours.”

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