A Prickly Problem.
Cactus poaching is on the rise in the West, even inside national parks such as Capitol Reef.COMBINE AN ONSLAUGHT of deadly beetles, human plant poachers, and grazing cattle. Add periodic drought and an absence of federal protection on private lands, and the threats against the Wright fishhook cactus make it a primary example of the pressures facing many endangered plants in the West.
Scientists estimate that between 50,000 to 100,000 Wright fishhook cacti remain in a two-county area of southern Utah, including a small section of Capitol Reef National Park. Standard adults grow six to nine centimeters in diameter, are low to the ground, and produce a small white to pale-pink flower in the spring. To its advantage and unlike many cacti, the Wright fishhook grows in many types of desert soil and throughout much of the ecosystem's lower elevations.
Despite its adaptability, the cactus' mortality rate exceeds reproduction by two-and-a-ha]f to one, says Ron Kass, a plant ecologist who monitors the plant for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). In the seven years that Kass has monitored BLM plots east of Capitol Reef, he has recorded nearly a 67 percent population decline.
A recent discovery, the change of appetite of the cactus borer beetle, moneilema semipunctatum, to include the Wright fishhook has raised questions as to what may be happening in the environment overall. "It appears to have switched hosts," Kass said. "The question is how long has it been doing this and why?" Previously it used only the prickly pear cactus as a host. The cactus borer beetle kills the plant by laying its larvae in the cactus' stem; the larvae eat their way out and hatch into adults.
To complicate recovery, cactus poaching is on the rise throughout the West. Kass describes the frustration of returning to a monitored plot to find that the large cacti--those capable of reproduction-have disappeared. "That wasn't a beetle; it was someone with a shovel."
Even inside the protected boundaries of Capitol Reef, the cacti are disappearing. Tom Clark, chief of resource management at the park, said that the plants are appearing on web sites where plant collectors can buy them. Capitol Reef's law enforcement team is investigating the incidents, Clark adds, but the problem continues to affect parks throughout the region. At Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada, the Park Service has begun implanting small transponders in coveted plants to track them if they are stolen.
On private lands, the Wright fishhook has almost no protection even though it has been listed since 1979. The Endangered Species Act protects endangered or threatened animals from being killed or taken on private property but does not provide the same protection, for plants. California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico, however, have taken steps to combat this omission by enacting laws that prevent or prescribe procedures for collection or destruction of some endangered and threatened plants. Kass laments that no similar law exists in Utah.
Other factors exacerbate the plant's decline. Drought compromises already weakened plants and increases mortality among juveniles. Cattle grazing inside Captitol Reef and on BLM land compacts soil, preventing water from being absorbed and seeds from taking root. There may be hope for the cactus if Kass's work provides data on grazing's negative effects, which could curtail the activity in the park, Clark says.
In the meantime, Kass doubts that the current recovery plan established by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is adequate to save the plant because it is based solely on numbers--three self-sustaining populations of 10,000 individiuals or more. To save the cactus, he believes, we must focus on more than numbers. "It's not just numbers; it's the number that are mature, reproducing individuals," he said.
ELIZABETH G. DAERR is news editor for National Parks.
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| Title Annotation: | existence of Wright fishhook cactus endangered in Utah |
|---|---|
| Author: | DAERR, ELIZABETH G. |
| Publication: | National Parks |
| Article Type: | Brief Article |
| Geographic Code: | 1U8UT |
| Date: | Jan 1, 2001 |
| Words: | 634 |
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