You can go to a run-of-the-mill garden shop and buy a Venus flytrap. Try to find one in the wild, though, and it's a different story. As Jackie Flynn Mogensen writes at Mother Jones, the plant grows naturally in only one place on Earth—the Carolinas. Specifically, in the region's wet longleaf pine forests, which are being felled at a steady clip by developers. The plant's numbers are dwindling—an estimated 880,000 exist, in about 75 colonies—though not to the point where it's protected by the Endangered Species Act. In fact, federal officials rejected that designation this summer, a decision that exasperated advocates who have watched the plant's habitat shrink year by year. "The worst thing about the act is it's waiting for things to get to the point where you're in trouble," says retired Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Julie Moore, who takes Mogensen on forages to see the plant.
The story digs into the history of Venus flytraps, which emerged some 65 million years ago and developed a unique method of feeding. "When it eats, it behaves more like an animal than a plant, ensnaring unsuspecting insects in its fragrant snap trap in as little as a third of a second," writes Mogensen. Or as Moore puts it, "There is nothing like it," she says. "Noth—ing." Moore and likeminded allies spend much time trying to stay ahead of real estate developers by finding and uprooting Venus flytraps from soon-to-be-bulldozed natural environs and transplanting them in safer ground. (Moore runs a conservation nonprofit.) They fear such development will only increase after a recent Supreme Court ruling that essentially removed protection from about half of the nation's existing wetlands. "With the demise of the flytrap, we're gonna lose other things," says Moore. Read the full story. (Or check out other longforms.)
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