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It makes me mad and furious

from everybooks I read , to every article i read about cps they say that carnivorous plants will soon be extinct from the wild very soon . it true , inconsiderate ppl poach these plants , they destroy there habitatas , they don';t even know what carnivorous plansta re all about . also when you go to a local nursery and see carnivorous plants , then you can a person who works there how to care for them , they tell you the wrong info , its really sad . too many ppl think these plants will die when you get them , they'll eat you , they carry diesease ,but there wrong , very wrong . someday in the future , i hope that alot more ppl will understand cps more correctly and will help conserve them in the wild .
 
goldtrap,

while your concern that CP's are becoming extinct is valid, you need to realize also that countries and people all over the world have taken steps to protect many populations, and there are still places where they do indeed thrive.

One thing to remember though, is that because of our hobby, a good portion of our plants will never go extinct, because we care for them, multiply them, and responsibly enter new individuals into the hobby who do the same as we do.

People like Tamlin are doing great things, his mission to spread rare sundews across the planet with no self intrest is a noble and useful cause, because of him, these plants take root all over the world in the collections of responsible hobbyists, and if any plants do go extinct, and it happens that a person like Tamlin has taken the time to spread them throughout the community, it will be far easier for ecologists to re-integrate them into the wild at some point.

Also remember, this is a good reason not to assign a name to a plant if you don't really know what it is, it's a good reason to get multiple clones of plants, to broaden the gene pool in our collections, and of course, it's not only a good reason not to poach, but an even better reason to have responsible seed collection practices, just a few seeds from a group of plants can provide a broad depth of genetic material for tissue culture... and I may be wrong, but that is where great companies like Borneo Exotics and Malysiana Tropicals come in.

Any how, the future is not all as dark and gloomy as you think it is... not saying cp's in the wild have a bright and shiny future, but they DO have one.
 
Good news. I believe this may have already been posted but here it goes again.

The ICPS (International Carnivorous Plant Society) has been given permission by the Government to sell endangered Sarracenia on a limited basis but more importantly they now can distribute endangered seeds to its members.

If anyone is growing endangered (legal) plants this is a great forum (petflytrap) for distributing seed but the ICPS is another good way to distribute seed to the CP comunity.

If anyone reading this is not a member, you should check them out. You can also donate money towards thier conservastion programs. There are other groups out there as well doing conservation work to which you can donate money or time.

Glenn
 
Goldtrap, have you been checking the date of the books you have been reading? About 30 years ago, many plants where on the verge, but since then, a lot of effort by people all over the world has really improved numbers.
 
Why all the worry?

I expect that the post-mankind planet Earth, with its endless miles of sterile ground and dearth of higher animal life, will provide an excellent place for new carnivorous plant species to develop.

Intelligence was a probably bad adaptation, long-term, for an ape species--too much individual drive to dominate, leading to recklessness. Homo sapiens will pay the price for this problem, while being, amusingly enough, the only animal on the planet capable of understanding it.

So relax. The plants will be fine. We won't get to see them, of course...

Steve
 
I guess its not much of a problem from all of your sayings , but i hope this problem won't get really big in the future .
 
The populations that are considerable threatened are usaully the wild ones that "get in the way" of malls, buildings, etc.
 
yah, but thankfully bogs make lousy building locations, lol!
 
The problem is that bogs get drained, filled in, smoothed out, and then the buildings go up. People need to understand that they are killing a natural resource that will never be seen again in nature. Once the bogs have been drained and filled, they are gone forever.

The good news is that it doesn't happen as much as it once did, but horror stories are still found around the world on plant habitat destruction.
 
  • #10
I go with Steveo's assessment. Evolution states that all available niches are already filled, and success by any one species inevitably means the decline of another. Right now we are a very successful life form, but our days are numbered as well. Species rise and fall. In terms of geologic time, we are a moments sunlight fading in the grass......it is a cosmic dance of form melting into form. I have heard it said that man will destroy the Earth, but this is not possible.

This is not to say that we should just sit back and allow the Earth's biodiversity to erode. I believe our intellect should lead us towards being Stewards of the Earth, and the life that is on it. But, until we learn to treat our own species with respect for its diversity, I see little chance that we will ever learn to care for other species.

For me, this is what growing CP is about. There are so many ills in the world, a man can exhaust himself striving against them all, and to little effect. I choose this one little part of creation as a stage for my labor and effort, relaizing that I probably cannot effect anything significant in the way of species preservation, but I am sure as heck going to knock myself out trying.
 
  • #11
I have enjoyed this discussion greatly and want add my thoughts. By means of this new hobby (CPs) I have meet the director of consrevation here at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. She has shed some light on bogs and their distruction and disappearence. RamPuppy is not totally correct. Just saving a plant species or a group is not enough, it is the total ecosystem that is being destroyed: the CP's, their allies, the amimals and insects that depend on them. The destruction does continue and we cannot become complacient.(see Randy's web site- http://www.geocities.com/pitcherplants/) For instance, there is a mite that is found only in the pitchers of sarracenias. When the sarracenias go, so go the mites. Big deal you say! Rent the movie Medicine Man with Sean Connary. In this movie, he found a cure for cancer in the rain forest. The cure was being used by the natives and was derived from a bromeliad. Of course the jungle was being lumbered and this only known site for these plants was being destroyed. What we find out later is that it is not the bromeliad that holds the cure but a species of ant that feeds on only that bromeliad and secretes a substance that was the cure. The statistics say, that everyday we loose a cure in the rain forest that we don't even know about yet: a cure for AIDS, cancer, alzhimers, parkensons, who knows what. It is something to consider. Don't feel helpless though. You are doing your part in educating other people. You can also contribute money to organizations that due good conservation work. The Nature Conservancy, The Atlanta Botanical Gardens (see conservation story- http://www.uga.edu/gpca/Project3.html)and many others. In less than a year, I have joking said I have become obesssed but what has happened is I have been touch by these rare and berautiful plants and it has moved me to action to do something in a world where I often find myself feeling hopeless about the things that are going on around me. See my web page for the complete and ongoing story. My goal is to buy that bog in Walton county if I have to to save it from becoming a pine tree plantation. A good book to read is Janisse Ray's, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, very enlighting! She says in a lecture that I was privledged to hear, "If there were one thing in the world you could do and know you would not fail, what would you do?" She has choosen to given the world back her long leaf pine forests, one acer at a time. What will you do? I think I will save one ancient bog in Walton County, FL. I think you all for the opportunity presented here in this forum.
I continue to be obsessed by a species,
Brooks, Atlanta
 
  • #12
I guess my dream is similiar. We have 5 arces of land in Minnesota. It is directly off of 160 acres of Marsh, swamp land. No one wants the land and thankfully the local goverment will not allow it to be used as commercial or residential land, it is green space. The price is dropping and I think we will be able to get it in a couple of years. The catch to buying the land is that you need to own one of the orginal 5 acre plots for excess, which we do. My in-laws bought it 30 years ago.

We, of course, want to keep it as marsh land. hopefully we can afford it before the goverment changes the classification on the land.
 
  • #13
Sarracenia Obsessed,

I think maybe you need to go back and read my post again, to say that I am not totally correct is kind of... eroneous? since we pretty much agree on everything...

the difference is that youre post deals with saving entire bogs, and my post dealt specifically with saving the plants themselves.

I also think we can pretty much gurantee that sarracenia will never go extinct, there are too many in cultivation, and well, you have two ways to look at it, man destroys the natural population, and they are gone from nature, or some great disaster wipes out mankind and all the ones in cultivation die... your only other option includes pretty much EVERYTHING dieing... hehh... that would indeed suck.

Any how... read the last part of my post, I said while the plants may not have a bright and shiney future, they do HAVE a future... a good point to ponder on.

Also, while I think that development and poaching having destroyed 95% of the CP habitat across the planet is enough, and that bog development does definately need to stop, I think everyone needs to realize that bogs can be re-made. They may not be exactly like they were, in every case actually, they won't be, but one example of bog reclemation is the project to reclaims hundreds of square miles of florida everglades...

I believe Spacer has created a bog off in the boonies of california or washington somewhere, and I know that Dustin (Nepenthes Gracillis) continues to be a caring and stalwart steward of a privatelly owned bog.

THe point of my post, and this one, was to ease goldtraps fears that these plants will dissapear in his lifetime, they won't, I can't say they will always be safe in the wild, but I think our race is slowly if asurredly becoming aware that destroying our environment for a parking lot is to put it lightlya tad bit foolish. Responsible people like yourself step up to the plate every day.

You all may not know it, but a portion of every sale at Petflytrap goes to societies that preserve Carnivorous Plants and their Bog Habitats.

Anyway... end of my tirade...
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  • #14
Ram,
It was not my intent to contradict your comments or disparage them but offer up another side from the purely consevatation stand point. I apoligize if I offended you in anyway or angered you. I too am frustrated with not only bog destruction but ALL environmental destruction. When we are done screwing up this planet which one do we think we will move to next? I live in Atlanta and we have the proud distinction of living in one of the last urban hardwood forests in the US and also hold the not so proud distinction of deforesting in faster than the rain forest. We also have some of the worst air quality (we actually have a smog season here that runs from May til late Sept.) and a reputation for polluting the local water sources. Yes, we CPers are doing what we can and as I stated, I often feel helpless to do anything about the rest of it. There is a story that was told to me about a little boy and his Dad that visited a beach and found it covered with dying star fish and the little boy asked why. The father responed that it was probably something that man did to cause the enormous kill. The little boy took off running down the beach throwing hand fulls of star fish back in the water. The father caught up with his breathless son and tried to explain that what he was doing was hopeless, that there were just to many for him to make a difference. The little boy picked up a star fish and tossed in back into the ocean and looked at his Dad and said, "It mattered to that one." We are doing the best we can, one small gesture at a time. My apoligies again Ram.

Brooks
 
  • #15
Sar, I am not mad or offended. I just didn't think the line "RAMPUPPY IS WRONG" quite fit. That's all.

I agree with 99.9% of what your saying (I reserve the right to be obtuse in that .1%
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LOL but if you ask what it is, I probably won't be able to tell you!

Any how, have fun.
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Oh... little hint... if I am in the slightest bit ticked at someone, there will not be a single smiley face in the post. Au contraire... you will know!
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Ther will be great gnashing of teeth and wailing and well.. I am just building myself up now... (must feel important... must feel important... )
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Lol... later.
 
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