Refuse:
This is a clump of soil I found next to
one of the poaching holes. You can see some seedling
Sarracenia flava plants trying to survive in the little
clod. There are also a few
Drosera capillaris plants, too. The poachers just dropped this
chunk and didn't even care.
After I took this picture, I put the clump of soil back into one of
the nearer poaching holes and patted it back into place.
It only took a second. The bastard
poachers didn't have an ounce of respect for the land--if they had,
they would have put these little carnivores back into the ground.
All they cared about, instead, was getting some plants home to
build up their damned collections, or to send to some other
growers.
Funny--just one month prior, I had been all excited about the
black-veined Sarracenia flava var. ornata that was
recently donated to our University collections. Now I am pretty
sure it was probably poached, and I suspect it might even have come
from this very spot.
Now, every time I see this plant I don't think about how pretty it
is, I just think about those poachers.
As I continued to survey this relatively small site that has suffered
so much poaching, I also realized that the poachers had been at work
on the Venus Flytraps. I found about 11 smaller holes in the
small slope where the Flytraps grew.
It was getting to be early afternoon, and I wanted to meet up with
my local guide. I hadn't been able to contact him the night before,
so I decided to drive directly to his house and see if he was home.
