07-02-08: Conservancy keeps watchful over fragile habitats

(c) 2008 State Port Pilot

By Jonathan Spiers, Staff Writer

BOILING SPRINGS -- Somewhere amid the longleaf pine savannas of Boiling Spring Lakes, where a city road ends and a namesake nature preserve begins, Angie Carl of The Nature Conservancy wrestles with the lock of a steel-beam gate blocking the way.

She takes several minutes to unlock and open it, as the gate is heavy and awkward, for a reason: To keep hunters, dumpers and off-road joyriders from accessing the preserve’s fragile habitat. But gates are not enough to protect the state-owned Boiling Spring Lakes Preserve. In-person site visits are needed as well. And these days, they’re becoming more frequent.

While illegal hunting falls under the jurisdiction of the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, which monitors the area as well, Carl and co-worker Sara Over provide an extra set of watchful eyes. But they’re out here looking for more than shell casings, trash or tire tracks.
They’re out here prowling for poachers.

“We’re bulking up patrols,” Carl says. “Wildlife Resources recently busted a guy with 1,000 plants coming out of the Green Swamp. We couldn’t put them back in the ground because it’s so dry, so we’re taking them up to the botanical garden in Raleigh, and we’ll put them back in the ground next year.”

Home to more than 400 vascular plant species, including several carnivorous plants and species of concern such as sundews, pitcher plants and the always popular Venus’ flytraps, the Boiling Spring Lakes Preserve, as well as the Green Swamp Preserve to the west, is a paradise not only to botanists, birdwatchers and nature enthusiasts. It’s a poachers’ paradise as well.

Typically, Carl explores the Boiling Spring Lakes Preserve twice a year. This year, she’s checking in every time she’s in town, which is often these days, as Boiling Spring Lakes is bustling with conservation activity, such as improvements to a nature trail and development of a plan to coordinate construction amid habitat of endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers.

As a land steward and fire specialist with The Nature Conservancy, a worldwide conservation group, Carl monitors a total of about 50,000 acres that comprise both preserves, which are owned by the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. In those roles, she looks for signs of poaching, hunting, dumping and trespassing.
“We put the gates up because we had a lot of problems with ATV riders and people dumping trash.” Recalling a trip through the Green Swamp, she adds, “There was a pair of old Jet-Skis that were just sitting there in the middle of the swamp.

“They put hunt stands and trails not just on our property but private lands as well,” she says. “Within city limits, you can’t shoot a firearm, so we can’t allow hunting.”

At The Nature Conservancy office in Wilmington, Carl uses Global Positioning System technology to look for hunt stands erected within the preserves. Along with Over, a conservation coordinator, and program director Dan Ryan, Carl also coordinates land management by controlled burns — a daunting task in Boiling Spring Lakes, as much of the preserve is non-contiguous, fragmented by privately owned parcels that restrict the fires’ paths. Acquiring such parcels is also among their tasks.

Burn management basically rejuvenates and accommodates the spread of much of the plant life surrounding Boiling Spring Lakes. Without that process, populations of Venus’ flytraps and other plants are prone to permanent loss. Numbers of carnivorous plants have dwindled as homes have been constructed, but Carl said those numbers could replenish with unrestricted, contiguous burns, ideally conducted once every three years.

“One day it will be where it needs to be,” she says assuredly. “There are a lot of places in Boiling Spring Lakes that need fire. The fascinating thing about Boiling Spring Lakes is the understory. After each fire, they’re still coming back as longleaf pines. The grasses, the flowers, the pitcher plants, they’re all still here and just need to be burned.

“Usually the hardest part of restoration is bringing plants back. Here, they’re already here,” she says. “The hardest part here is the burning. If the plants come back and the trees come back, then the animals come back too.”

To access the sites, The Nature Conservancy stores several all-terrain vehicles, as well as a jon boat and fire truck, within the city. ATVs are needed to access much of the preserve. Riding them on city roads is illegal in Boiling Spring Lakes, so Carl gets permission from the police department before each outing.

Potential for danger exists. Carl has come across bears, foxes, a bobcat once midday in the Green Swamp, as well as less predictable humans not wanting to get caught trespassing, let alone hunting or poaching.

“I never know what to expect when I come out here,” she says while driving a four-wheeler at moderate speed along unpaved roads. “I came across a guy who was poaching out here. I brought a police officer with me. But he was under the power lines, so we didn’t know if he was on our property or not. That’s what scares me about coming out here: You never know.”

Despite this, Carl does not carry a weapon. She is not an enforcement officer. Rather, she relies on common sense, assistance from enforcement agencies as needed, and a sense of humor. What draws her to nature trumps most causes for concern.

“People say you should watch out for snakes. I look out for them because I want to see them!” she said with a laugh. “The human aspect of it is more threatening. I try to wear bright colors. I’ve never been shot at. Things I worry about most of all is if we have to pull ticks or chiggers off at the end of the day. One day I had 66 ticks.”

Among conservationists’ top concerns are Venus’ flytraps, an extremely rare and highly sought-after carnivorous plant that grows nowhere else in the world but within a 70-mile radius of Wilmington.
Legally, Venus’ flytraps are not a protected species. In North Carolina, they are designated as a species of concern, but flytraps may be harvested on private property, collected and sold, so long as that property is one’s own or the seller has permission from the landowner. As the preserves are state-protected land, such permission is not granted, thereby making the removal of flytraps from them illegal.
Violations carry fines of $50 per plant, but catching someone in the act can prove challenging. Commercial poachers have been known to unearth thousands of plants and leave within hours.

Since monitoring 50,000 acres continuously is not an option, conservationists are focusing on deterring poachers as much as catching them.

One technique is to mark every flytrap found on state conservation land, painting onto the plants’ roots a special dye already used to track ginseng, another plant prone to poaching. Should poachers try to sell what they’ve stolen, the dye markings, which can withstand the elements and illuminate under black lights after fading, show potential buyers that those plants stem from the black market.

The Nature Conservancy and representatives from the state have led expeditions the past two years to mark as many flytraps as possible. However, lack of funding could threaten the program in the future, according to Rob Evans, the state’s sole plant conservationist responsible for overseeing nature preserves across North Carolina.
“We were on the edge financially last year,” Evans told the Boiling Spring Lakes Preserve Advisory Committee earlier this year. “We’re unsure if we can afford to do it again this year.”

Evans said funding is continually requested through the state’s fiscal budget, and he encouraged the committee and anyone wanting more funding and regulations to protect plants to write to commissioner Steve Troxler of the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, 1001 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC, 27699-1001.
“You’ve got one of the best populations of Venus’ flytraps in the world,” Evans reminded city officials on the committee.

The only employee paid by the state to manage state-owned lands and nature preserves, Evans later said The Nature Conservancy’s assistance has helped him and Laura Gadd of the state’s plant conservation program with a challenging task in Boiling Spring Lakes.
“The state is having trouble with managing that preserve,” Evans said. “Because the state has only one person, we decided to team up with The Nature Conservancy for management. The management situation there is very difficult. We do management there, too, but they do take on the lion’s share.”

Out in the preserve, Carl points out several Venus’ flytraps below some brush. Even if the marking program becomes less frequent, she says, regular monitoring of the preserves will likewise deter poachers.
“We do mark some of the plants, but to mark all of them isn’t a viable option,” she says. “What we’re doing more is we’re bulking up enforcement. Game officers are watching for activity and monitoring places that have been poached. Volunteers go out different days during different times of day. With the enforcement we’ve had over the past several years, and that people are actually being caught and are being prosecuted, it is having an impact.”

Whatever method is used, Carl maintains that the preserves are worth protecting with any means available. And as for those big gates, which only she and a select group have keys to unlock, Carl emphasized that they’re not meant to keep the general public out, but rather to keep the preserve the way it is.

“This is one of the most biologically diverse places east of the Mississippi,” she says. “We’re not saying, ‘Don’t enjoy the land.’ We’re just saying, ‘Leave it the way you find it and don’t treat it like it’s your own.’ Treat it like a museum. That’s what it is. It is a living, breathing museum.”