Poaching of endangered plants

13 pounds (or about 8000 plants) of illegally harvested ginseng , such as this one, were seized over just 10 days from the Great Smokey Mountains National Park

Law enforcement officials have tried a number of different methods to stop plant poaching in our national parks and conservation areas.

After 13 pounds (or about 8000 plants) of illegally harvested ginseng were seized over just 10 days from the Great Smokey Mountains National Park, park officials asked Jim Corbin to look for a solution to illegal poaching Corbin is a plant specialist with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and found a simple dye marker method to mark ginseng in the ground. He also had to find a way to mark plants with the location in which they were grown, otherwise poachers could simply claim that they had strayed onto government land accidentally and that the ginseng in their possession had originated elsewhere.

Application is simple. Soil is scraped from the plant's stem to expose the root, which is sprayed with a drying agent. A small amount of the orange dye mixed with gypsum, organic filler, and color-coded silicon granules is then sprinkled on the root. Within a short time, the dye penetrates the root and permanently marks it as the property of the U.S. Government. Poachers can remove the sur face dye from the root, making it harder to recognize a poached plant, but cannot remove enough of the dye to escape detection without damaging the root.

Corbin also trained a dog to detect the dye.and the dog has since partici pated in over 100 seizures of illegally harvested ginseng. Park officials said that the effect on poaching has been tremendous. Other high-dollar poaching targets such as goldenseal, black cohosh, blue cohosh, bloodroot, lady's slipper, lilies, trillium, and galax have been marked in a number of other parks around the country.

Similar technology is now being tested to deter theft of petrified wood from preserves in Arizona.