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Post by BarryRice on May 18, 2007 18:06:44 GMT
Hey Folks, I have learned (via Stephen Davis) of a story that is so over-the-top in bad conservation ethics, that I can only hope it is a case of bad reporting. The link to the article is: www.wilmingtonstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070517/NEWS/705170451/1050&template=currentsIn case the article is removed from the web, here is the text: By Gareth McGrath Staff Writer gareth.mcgrath@starnewsonline.com Gareth McGrath: 343-2384 Hampstead | Deep in the Holly Shelter Gamelands, the hunt was on for a mature cottonmouth. Wading through the thigh-deep water, staffers from the N.C. Aquarium at Fort Fisher fanned out into the pond choked with horsetail rush. This early morning foray for the poisonous water moccasin wasn't successful, although a banded water snake and several juvenile cottonmouths were spotted, and a larger animal retreated into its hole as the searchers approached the far bank. But by lunchtime, Wednesday's collection trip into the nearly 70,000-acre gamelands had netted a slew of carnivorous plants and small fish for Fort Fisher's Cape Fear Conservatory and exhibits at the state's two other aquariums. About once a week, Fort Fisher staff head into the field to gather flora and fauna for the aquariums, and one of their favorite collection areas for plants and freshwater fish and other critters are the Pender County gamelands. "This offers us a good place to come and gather representative species of the habitats of this area," said aquarium curator Hap Fatzinger as he slogged through a pond, lower than normal due to the unseasonably dry conditions so far this year, gathering minnows. Officials said the new plants and animals - a need Fort Fisher first tries to meet through captive breeding or propagation programs - are used to replace flora and fauna that dies off and to add or expand exhibits. "For the first few years you try to build up the collection," Fatzinger said. "Now we're trying to add diversity." But Fort Fisher, which reopened in 2002 after a nearly two-year-long expansion project that tripled its size, isn't just randomly taking the state's natural resources. Aquarium Assistant Director Paul Barrington said Fort Fisher works closely with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, which manages Holly Shelter, to make sure it isn't stressing the local environment or gathering sensitive species without official permission. "We try to practice selective collecting, only taking what the environment can support," he said. "We don't want to damage that which we're trying to educate the public about the need to conserve." That was evident around one of the first ponds the small group stopped at early Wednesday morning. "There are probably 500 flytraps within 30 feet of where I am right now," said Keith Farmer, a technician at Fort Fisher and the aquarium's Holly Shelter expert, as he has traipsed around the gamelands for nearly four decades. Also drawing the attention of Fort Fisher Horticulturist Melanie Doyle were the yellow pitcher plants, which were thriving around the seasonal pond. Within an hour, the small group had collected several bucket-loads of pitcher plants, Venus' flytraps and sun-dews, another indigenous insect-eating plant. "These are some of the signature plants found in these habitats," Barrington said. "And of course the carnivorous plants are a popular topic of interest with our visitors." Also along on Wednesday's collection trip was Michael Thomason, horticulturist with the S.C.Aquarium. The Charleston, S.C., aquarium and Fort Fisher have developed a strong collaborative relationship, and the two institutions often combine resources on collection trips or trade excess animals or plants to lessen the need of taking them from the wild. Thomason said he was especially interested in gathering some flytraps, the small carnivorous plant with the bigger-than-life reputation that's only found within about 70 miles of Wilmington. "I don't know of another place where we can do this, and that's what makes Holly Shelter so special," he said as he scoured the thick wire grass for the diminutive flytraps. "This is a real treasure you guys have right in your backyard."
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Post by BarryRice on May 18, 2007 18:12:36 GMT
Hey Folks, Now that you've read the article, here is the letter I have sent to the aquarium staff, as well as a number of ICPS conservation partners and colleagues: ------------------------------------------ Dear Hap Fatzinger, Paul Barrington, and Melanie Doyle I was alerted to an unsettling article which appeared in the StarNewsOnline web site, which described your collection of carnivorous plants from a site in Holly Shelter Gamelands (text and hyperlink quoted below). I can only hope that the reporter, Gareth McGrath, grossly misrepresented the situation. Mr. McGrath seems to be describing safaris in which your staff is visiting Holly Shelter and collecting Dionaea muscipula, Sarracenia flava, and Drosera (Venus flytraps, pitcher plants, sundews) and other native species to "replace flora and fauna that dies off and to add or expand exhibits." To collect plants for your displays--if it is true you are actually doing this--is absolutely inexcusable and an embarrassment to conservation. Whether you have permission or permits for such collecting trips is irrelevant. It is unethical and immoral. I am trying to imagine your response to the notion of making frequent trips to collect "several bucket-loads" of corals, shellfish, and interesting invertebrates to stock an aquarium display that is unable to sustain the organisms in captivity. Why do you feel it is appropriate to collect rare carnivorous plant species, plants which are already pressured by habitat destruction and fragmentation, pollution, modified hydrology, changed fire regimes, invasive species, and poaching? All the species described in the article are readily available on the retail and wholesale market. If you are interested in obtaining plants for your displays, you should purchase them. Given a five year horizon, a single infructescence of Sarracenia flava could provide you with more plants than you could possibly house. Just because you can take something out of the wild, does not give you the moral position to do so. Sometimes conservation and education are difficult to do correctly and rapidly, but such challenges do not give us the authority for inappropriate behavior. For your reference, I note the following restrictions and conservation listings that are useful rankings and indications of plant rarity. Dionaea muscipula: *CITES Appendix Appendix II *North Carolina plant of "Special Concern" (Plant Conservation Program, NCDA & CS Plant Industry Division) *ICPS Imperiled Carnivorous Plant List ( www.carnivorousplants.org/statements/seedcollect.html) Sarracenia flavaCITES Appendix II I eagerly await your reply. Sincerely Barry Rice Barry A. Rice, Ph.D. Director of Conservation Programs The International Carnivorous Plant Society www.carnivorousplants.org --------------------------------- I am awaiting their response. If I am unsatisified by the news, we'll have to mount a SERIOUS letter-writing campaign. Sincerely Barry
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Post by ICPS-bob on May 18, 2007 18:34:32 GMT
Excellent letter, Barry. They clearly do not understand their mixed message: "We try to practice selective collecting, only taking what the environment can support," he said. "We don't want to damage that which we're trying to educate the public about the need to conserve." In other words, do as we say, not as we do.
Perhaps we should create a Hall of Shame for such institutions and agencies. This could be offset by a Hall of Fame for those institutions and agencies that practice good conservation and education.
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Post by Aidan on May 18, 2007 18:39:10 GMT
Unreal. I had hoped this type of behaviour was a thing of the past.
Send a copy of your correspondence to the editor as well. If they have any guts they will publish it.
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Post by Michael Catalani on May 18, 2007 19:57:04 GMT
Officials said the new plants and animals - a need Fort Fisher first tries to meet through captive breeding or propagation programs - are used to replace flora and fauna that dies off and to add or expand exhibits. So a Cape Fear conservatory has problems breeding carnivorous plants that are indigenous to their area. Sounds more like a mausoleum than a conservatory. I certainly hope theres some mis-information in the aritcle as well. I'm not sure how they will reconcile the phrases "bucketloads" and "a slew of" when describing the number of plants they are taking.
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Post by Dave Evans on May 18, 2007 22:56:19 GMT
Dear List,
BTW, the folks the run 'the show' down there just might feel this level of collecting is perfectly sustainable. After all, it is development that has stopped the entire area from being exactly like Holly Shelter. As long as the land is maintained, and they do a fantastic job at Holly Shelter, their actual collecting activities will not harm the populations of plants. These activities will not harm the environment at all. The focus needs to be on their poor public example and why it is not good.
Instead collecting; and letting the plants die after displaying them, then recollecting; they should naturalize the plants at their other location. However, scientists are often taught that things like this are impossible, or that they should be avoided. "Nuts", I say.
Their public example of how they go about utilizing this resource is really poor, as it may encourage poaching or other poor resource usage practices by the general public.
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Post by pinglover on May 19, 2007 19:25:46 GMT
A top contender for a "Hall of Shame".
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Post by maraxas on May 20, 2007 13:26:01 GMT
They may not be hurting the environment; however what if a lot of people start to "collect in a sustainable way?"
Hopefully this article has portrayed them wrong, or has neglected to report on their conservation education.
Barry: Looking forward to their response. Keep us updated. (as I'm sure you will)
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Clint
Full Member
Posts: 808
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Post by Clint on May 20, 2007 15:52:06 GMT
TC'd plants are common and cheap and fill a need so that people don't have to "collect in a sustainable way." You can buy plants created in-vitro at walmart. It sounds like these people are primarily going out and replacing plants they kill. It's a joke. Several bucket loads? Are you kidding me? Maybe these people need a bigger budget to buy TC'd plants or get some skill and learn how to grow.
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Post by stevestewart on May 20, 2007 19:50:25 GMT
I do also hope the North Carolina Aquarium does not have a gift shop that sells carnivorous plants (it wouldn't surprise me). If so, a list of wholesale suppliers is even more needed by them. A cp wholesalers list would also be easier to rationalize if the non-profit organization were to need more income to feed their fish and pay their horticulturist.
Take care, Steven Stewart
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Post by coruscate on May 21, 2007 5:11:18 GMT
Umm, would they be as cavalier if they were displaying dolphins?
"We caught bucket loads of dolphins today, of course we try to captively breed them first, but we want diversity and we're trying to increase our collection. Today we went for diversity. We caught several different species of dolphins to add to the display about how dophins are in a critcal population bottleneck due to collection pressure. We collect dolphins every couple of weeks to teach people that this is a bad idea for conservation. Sometimes we get a whale for big impact message."
In a previous post, the conservation ethic was nicely called "mixed message."
I think "self sabotage" of their conservation message, or just plain hypocrisy might work as well.
I don't like to be this harsh, but they are in a rut of tradition that they need help getting out of, as well as that swift kick to their ethics that Barry sent.
I will be the first to donate $100.00 towards a captive breeding and outplanting/restoraton/conservation education program as well as personally travel to North Carolina and operate a shovel for a hot humid week in order to create a covered, open air teaching garden display that provides material for divisions, seed or tc propagation for restocking their Cape Fear display area. They have surrounding land and permits to be able to do this. I bet they could be successful enough at it to generate cash or gift shop materials. I will also enthusiastically review any curriculum or interpretation content they want to deliver via signage or staff or help develop any continuing education teacher workshops that use CPs as a thematic hub or thread.
But first they need to lay off the wild collecting as much as possible.
I see this same logic happening with intertidal organisms at almost all our aquariums in California.
Their limited collecting probably has very little impact over all, but the effort of captive breeding isn't as successful as it should be for intertidal orgranisms. It does make it difficult to advise on conservation and protection under a conundrum of integrity. Its not a "do as I say not as I do" problem because the topic or debate is conspicuously absent to allow that paradox to come up when engaging the public.
Anyways, that's my 2 cents.
The North Carolina Aquariums are a division of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, so I'm also curious to hear their response to Barry's letter.
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Post by pinglover on May 22, 2007 4:51:35 GMT
Thank you for registering to comment coruscate. I hope you continue to log on and participate in this forum.
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Post by BarryRice on May 22, 2007 16:28:09 GMT
Hey Folks,
I just finished a cordial phone call with several staffers from the North Carolina Aquarium. They wanted to assure me that, in their opinions, the article was something of a mischaracterization of the actual situation.
I told them that probably the most satisfactory way to proceed forward would be if they were to send a letter explaining their actions and justifications, etc., so that everyone could hear their side of things.
I have hopes that some mutual education can come out of this, and perhaps even potential partnerships for conservation can develop.
First, though, we'll have to see their letter/press release, which they told me they were already drafting.
Sincerely
Barry
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Post by Michael Catalani on May 22, 2007 16:55:33 GMT
Nice work Barry. I'm glad these guys called. Hopefully this will lead to something good for the wild plants, as well as their own collection.
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Post by BarryRice on May 24, 2007 17:08:06 GMT
Hey Folks, NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher have sent to me an open letter regarding their collecting activities. The letter was in PDF format, which I have posted here: www.sarracenia.com/temp/NCAFF052407.pdfAn extraction of the text is given below. I'm stepping out of the office shortly, and will be in the field until Wednesday, but I encourage folks to continue discussion of this situation. Barry
May 24, 2007 Barry Rice, Ph.D. International Carnivorous Plant Society Dear Dr. Rice: Thank you for contacting us about the May 16 Wilmington Star-News article on the Aquarium’s acquisition of wild carnivorous plants from Holly Shelter Game Land in Pender County, North Carolina. Thanks also for the opportunity to discuss the matter with you on the phone on May 22, and for your suggestion about partnerships to further the goals of the International Carnivorous Plant Society (ICPS). As I believe I conveyed during our conversation, we share your sincere concern for the survival of these important native plant species. We appreciate your willingness to share your expertise, and we value your recommendations. As we discussed, the news article may have given readers an incorrect perception as to the frequency and impact of our collection of wild carnivorous plants. We strive whenever possible to acquire plants from local suppliers, and have achieved increasing success with propagations in our own greenhouse. When we have ventured into the field, our practices have been consistent with ICPS policy regarding collection (as outlined on the Web site . We are always receptive to suggestions that will help us minimize our acquisitions from the wild. For example, we are currently in contact with the N.C. Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill, which has offered to donate tissue and seed stock. We have also received offers of assistance from horticulturists at the N.C. Zoo, where a rare plant rescue program is now in development. We are very proud of our leadership in environmental education, and strive to set a positive example in all areas of nature conservation. Thanks again for your kind offer to share knowledge and ideas that will help us in this regard. We look forward to learning more from you and your organization. Best regards, Paul Barrington Director of Husbandry and Operations N.C. Aquarium at Fort Fisher
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