7 ms·

Busting Cactus Smugglers in the American West

32 points by Thevet 11y ago

Shivetya 11y ago
Simply amazing, part of the reason I keep reading here is that things I would never suspect just appear. So knowing that people do come here and go elsewhere for cacti we can assume other types of plants are susceptible as well. Also based on this knowledge, is there any danger to purposefully spreading certain lines to other parts of the world? Surely there are similar environments which might become home to a transplanted variety, the danger is that its no invasive or dangerous to other specie.
- Xylakant 11y ago
  > Surely there are similar environments which might become home to a transplanted variety, the danger is that its no invasive or dangerous to other specie. This happens all the time. For example the giant hogweed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heracleum_mantegazzianum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heracleum_mantegazzianum) was introduced in Europe as an ornamental flower. It displaces native species and on top of that is highly phototoxic.
- Symbiote 11y ago
  > So knowing that people do come here and go elsewhere for cacti we can assume other types of plants are susceptible as well Yes, absolutely. Animals make the news more (rhinos, lions etc), but the plant groups of cacti, orchids and bromeliads are very desirable to certain collectors. A $500 fine — and presumably a ban on returning to the USA — doesn't seem like much deterrent. That's not covered a fraction of the cost of the investigation, and is very small compared to the black-market value of the plants.
  - matt_morgan 11y ago
    Agreed on the fine. I wish the article had said something about what happens beyond the fine ... will these people be barred from entering the country? Is there a list that will help people keep them out of other countries?
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  Invasive species are certainly a concern with a lot of things: just look at how Kudzu has taken over so much stuff in the American southeast. However, cacti I would think would be unproblematic, especially saguaros. Saguaro cacti are huge when mature, but it takes over a century to reach that size. They're very slow-growing. They're not going to overtake any land on their own unless you intentionally ignore it for a few centuries. Moreover, they only do well in the Sonoran desert where the climate is right for them, and there's no competition or predators. They wouldn't last anywhere where anything could eat them (not likely with the spines of course), or where the weather killed them off (they probably can't handle freezing temperatures very much). They can't even handle too much wind: their root systems are very shallow, and they tend to fall down in storms when they're old. Young and middle-aged ones that are transplanted are normally propped up with 2x4 lumber for a while to let their roots grow more; it's an extremely common sight in Arizona in places with new development where they transplanted some cacti in for landscaping.
zeveb 11y ago
Seems awfully silly to ban cactus propagation in order to preserve cacti from extinction. Cows and wheat are in no danger of extinction; a healthy trade in cacti would enhance the survivability of each species.
- matt_morgan 11y ago
  1) Nowhere in the article is a ban on cactus propagation mentioned. 2) Cows and wheat are nowhere near being wild, free-living species. There's a difference.
- Symbiote 11y ago
  There may only be a few known plants, and it's likely there's already some in a botanic garden — professionally cared for and available for research, rather than stuffed in a suitcase then hidden in a shed. Several of the cacti mentioned are available commercially, but that's not good enough for these collectors. (Incidentally, collectors also steal plants from botanic gardens.) > Cows and wheat are in no danger of extinction Not necessarily. There's very little genetic diversity in domesticated species, which leaves them susceptible to disease and intolerant of changes to climate etc. The "crop wild relatives" are essential if some disease does appear — as it did for bananas — and threaten to wipe out the domesticated breed/variety.
  - hydrogen18 11y ago
    When you say "limited genetic diversity" in reference to a mammal like a cow I am inclined to agree. They reproduce sexually and can gain or lose traits. But I am unsure if you can have a 'wild relative' of a banana as my understanding is every single instance of the plant is just a clone. I might have it wrong however, the plant might be able to undergo sexual reproduction but is propagated by humans cloning it. For example, consider Pando. Apparently the plant could theoretically reproduce sexually but hasn't in thousands of years. No one is even sure if it could be induced. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)
    - Symbiote 11y ago
chiph 11y ago
> dug up eight saguaros from federal land in daylight, then sold them for $2,000 apiece, two of them he shipped to Austria. Saguaros are amazingly heavy (people have been killed by the "arms" landing on them) - I'm sort of impressed that the buyers could afford to ship something that large and awkward.
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  As for those arms, here's another fun fact: Saguaros with arms are much more desirable and valuable than ones without them. So if you have a saguaro in your yard and it has no arms (or not enough), it's pretty easy to make it grow one: just get an axe and whack it really hard! It'll grow an arm where you chopped it with the axe. (However, it'll take a while to grow: these cacti are very slow growing.) Full-grown saguaros are thousands of pounds heavy, and can exceed 10,000 pounds for really old and large ones. For the ones shipped, I imagine they got smaller, younger ones. I'm not sure how you'd ship a mature one intercontinentally without it dying. And honestly, digging them up from Federal land isn't that bad; there was an incident a few years ago in Arizona where the government happily destroyed thousands of such cacti, simply because they were in the way of some power line. You'd think they could have sold them, and let the cactus sellers come take them and transplant them: there's a huge demand for them in the developed areas, but they're very expensive due to the limited supply since wild ones (on Federal and state land) are off-limits. But nope, they just got some machine in there and ground them all up. A lot of people were pissed about that.

32 points by Thevet 11y ago

Simply amazing, part of the reason I keep reading here is that things I would never suspect just appear. So knowing that people do come here and go elsewhere for cacti we can assume other types of plants are susceptible as well. Also based on this knowledge, is there any danger to purposefully spreading certain lines to other parts of the world? Surely there are similar environments which might become home to a transplanted variety, the danger is that its no invasive or dangerous to other specie.

Xylakant 11y ago
> Surely there are similar environments which might become home to a transplanted variety, the danger is that its no invasive or dangerous to other specie. This happens all the time. For example the giant hogweed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heracleum_mantegazzianum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heracleum_mantegazzianum) was introduced in Europe as an ornamental flower. It displaces native species and on top of that is highly phototoxic.
Symbiote 11y ago
> So knowing that people do come here and go elsewhere for cacti we can assume other types of plants are susceptible as well Yes, absolutely. Animals make the news more (rhinos, lions etc), but the plant groups of cacti, orchids and bromeliads are very desirable to certain collectors. A $500 fine — and presumably a ban on returning to the USA — doesn't seem like much deterrent. That's not covered a fraction of the cost of the investigation, and is very small compared to the black-market value of the plants.
- matt_morgan 11y ago
  Agreed on the fine. I wish the article had said something about what happens beyond the fine ... will these people be barred from entering the country? Is there a list that will help people keep them out of other countries?
Grishnakh 11y ago
Invasive species are certainly a concern with a lot of things: just look at how Kudzu has taken over so much stuff in the American southeast. However, cacti I would think would be unproblematic, especially saguaros. Saguaro cacti are huge when mature, but it takes over a century to reach that size. They're very slow-growing. They're not going to overtake any land on their own unless you intentionally ignore it for a few centuries. Moreover, they only do well in the Sonoran desert where the climate is right for them, and there's no competition or predators. They wouldn't last anywhere where anything could eat them (not likely with the spines of course), or where the weather killed them off (they probably can't handle freezing temperatures very much). They can't even handle too much wind: their root systems are very shallow, and they tend to fall down in storms when they're old. Young and middle-aged ones that are transplanted are normally propped up with 2x4 lumber for a while to let their roots grow more; it's an extremely common sight in Arizona in places with new development where they transplanted some cacti in for landscaping.

zeveb 11y ago

Seems awfully silly to ban cactus propagation in order to preserve cacti from extinction. Cows and wheat are in no danger of extinction; a healthy trade in cacti would enhance the survivability of each species.

matt_morgan 11y ago
1) Nowhere in the article is a ban on cactus propagation mentioned. 2) Cows and wheat are nowhere near being wild, free-living species. There's a difference.
Symbiote 11y ago
There may only be a few known plants, and it's likely there's already some in a botanic garden — professionally cared for and available for research, rather than stuffed in a suitcase then hidden in a shed. Several of the cacti mentioned are available commercially, but that's not good enough for these collectors. (Incidentally, collectors also steal plants from botanic gardens.) > Cows and wheat are in no danger of extinction Not necessarily. There's very little genetic diversity in domesticated species, which leaves them susceptible to disease and intolerant of changes to climate etc. The "crop wild relatives" are essential if some disease does appear — as it did for bananas — and threaten to wipe out the domesticated breed/variety.
- hydrogen18 11y ago
  When you say "limited genetic diversity" in reference to a mammal like a cow I am inclined to agree. They reproduce sexually and can gain or lose traits. But I am unsure if you can have a 'wild relative' of a banana as my understanding is every single instance of the plant is just a clone. I might have it wrong however, the plant might be able to undergo sexual reproduction but is propagated by humans cloning it. For example, consider Pando. Apparently the plant could theoretically reproduce sexually but hasn't in thousands of years. No one is even sure if it could be induced. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)
  - Symbiote 11y ago

chiph 11y ago

> dug up eight saguaros from federal land in daylight, then sold them for $2,000 apiece, two of them he shipped to Austria. Saguaros are amazingly heavy (people have been killed by the "arms" landing on them) - I'm sort of impressed that the buyers could afford to ship something that large and awkward.

Grishnakh 11y ago
As for those arms, here's another fun fact: Saguaros with arms are much more desirable and valuable than ones without them. So if you have a saguaro in your yard and it has no arms (or not enough), it's pretty easy to make it grow one: just get an axe and whack it really hard! It'll grow an arm where you chopped it with the axe. (However, it'll take a while to grow: these cacti are very slow growing.) Full-grown saguaros are thousands of pounds heavy, and can exceed 10,000 pounds for really old and large ones. For the ones shipped, I imagine they got smaller, younger ones. I'm not sure how you'd ship a mature one intercontinentally without it dying. And honestly, digging them up from Federal land isn't that bad; there was an incident a few years ago in Arizona where the government happily destroyed thousands of such cacti, simply because they were in the way of some power line. You'd think they could have sold them, and let the cactus sellers come take them and transplant them: there's a huge demand for them in the developed areas, but they're very expensive due to the limited supply since wild ones (on Federal and state land) are off-limits. But nope, they just got some machine in there and ground them all up. A lot of people were pissed about that.