Sarracenia destruction

[Brassleaves]

Recently on a trip to SC, I visited a preserve that I have been to countless time while living in the state. There are three species of north american pitcher plants growing on this site. This time I was horrified by what I had found. All, not some or most, but all of the S. flava growing submerged in the mud had been dug up and eaten. I would have assumed poachers if I had not found the remains of a few left half eaten. All is not lost though, all of the plants growing in the sphagnum on land did not get disturbed. It was still very disturbing since my estimates would be in the hundreds of thousands of plant that have been lost. The marks left in the remaining rhizomes had clear teeth marks in them. The kind you find on wood left from beavers. There was a beaver dam at the site, but it had been there for years without them disturbing the plants before. I also found beaver bodies around the area which makes me think another group found the destruction before me and destroyed the dam and killed the beavers. I'm not sure if the beavers were responsible. The marks in the rhizomes were definitely from a rodent, but a small one. I've never seen or heard of nutria in the area, but they might be a culprit. I posted some pictures of the plants found left half eaten (unfortunately they left just the growing point with no roots, saving these was hopeless) and also of a recent beaver kill. My camera's macro doesn't work the way it used to so some of the pics are a little fuzzy, but you can get the idea from them.








Here are some pics of the plants that made it.

[Brian Barnes]

Hello,

Yes, that is definitely bad news indeed... If beavers have always been there, I wonder what caused them to decimate the pitcher populations this year? A shortage of food items maybe?

Hmmm...that is very interesting. I think i'll look into it....

Thanks for your informative post,

Brian.

[meadowview]

Hi Folks:

We have had personal experience with beaver eating Sarracenia pitcher plants at Meadowview. We have both beaver and pitcher plants in the pond at Meadowview and for years lived harmoniously with the beaver. THEN, in 2002, during the big drought the beaver started annihilating, over night, meter sized clumps of Sarracenia! Pitcher remnants were found floating in the pond. We dealt with the culprits and still have beavers but they are not eating the plants. All I can think of was that some rogue beaver got a taste for pitchers and told his friends about it.

In the SC case mentioned here, the damage looks suspiciously like a vole had eaten the plant. Who knows?

Sincerely,

Phil Sheridan
Director
Meadowview Biological
Research Station

[Brassleaves]

Thank you both for your input. Right now I'll I can do is make educated guesses on what was going on since I didn't see any animals eating them first hand. After thinking about it some more, I remembered a friend of mine had hit a rather large alligator with her car about a 1/4 mile away from the area in another pond two years earlier. The loss of such a large predator might have caused the beaver population to increase enough for them to start looking for other food sources. Though, I know a main course for beavers is small shoots and there is no shortage of these in this area.
Like Paul said, it could just be one beaver that figured it out and taught the others through mimicry.
I plan on making a call to the state's DNR to inform them of what is going on. I'm sure they would be more concerned about the loss of the rare plants than the loss of the common beavers.

[Brian Barnes]

Brassleaves,

Please keep us posted on your findings...

Happy Growing,

Brian.

[Alexis]

On the upside, I should think those remains will sprout roots in the spring, especially if they're in wet conditions.