Venus Flytraps at Risk: The Struggle to Save a Popular Carnivorous Houseplant

On some quiet days in North Carolina’s Green Swamp Preserve, the sounds of chirping birds and buzzing insects are replaced by the crackling of flames. Wisps of blue-gray smoke rise into the air, and the ground, densely covered with tall grass and shrubs, is scorched by a constant wave of fire. Among the tallest vegetation caught in the blaze are the unique Venus flytraps, no more than a few inches high, with their tooth-lined ‘mouths’ open towards the sky.

In mere moments, the fire transforms their iconic forms into mere piles of ash.

A group of officials from the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission observes the entire event. They aren’t there to extinguish the flames—instead, they feed the fire, using handheld drip torches to skim across the grass. Once the area has been completely burned, they can relax: their mission is accomplished. These controlled burns, which replicate natural fires that once occurred, recreate the ideal conditions for the Venus flytrap’s survival and growth.

It might seem unusual to go to such lengths, considering Venus flytraps are easy to find for those wanting to add one to a dorm room windowsill or manage a fly problem: They’re sold for under $6 a pot at large hardware chains, and for $10 to $30 at independent plant stores. But in the wild, the plant exists in just one location: a 75-square-mile region of North and South Carolina. This represents less than a third of the plant’s historical range. Only 302,000 Venus flytraps remain there, a dramatic drop from 4 million in the 1970s.

In light of such a significant decline, scientists have pushed for the plant’s inclusion on the Endangered Species List. While prescribed burns help ensure the Venus flytrap’s survival, they can’t fully secure its future, especially when the plants also face threats from land development, climate change, and poachers.

Some of the most brilliant minds in history have been fascinated by the Venus flytrap. Thomas Jefferson made multiple efforts to obtain its seeds, and in 1804, he succeeded in planting them in a pot. However, the plants are delicate: Venus flytraps require habitats with damp, low-nutrient soil and plenty of sunlight. The swampy coastal plains of the Carolinas provide the exact soil they need, and without the boggy conditions of that region, Jefferson's flytraps likely never sprouted.

Seventy-one years later, naturalist Charles Darwin described the plant in his 1875 book *Insectivorous Plants*, stating: “This plant, commonly called Venus' fly-trap, from the rapidity and force of its movements, is one of the most wonderful in the world.”

You don’t need to be an expert in botany to see the appeal of the flytrap. It stands apart from ferns or succulents; it moves and interacts with its environment, placing it in a unique category between plant and pet. The plant rests with its leaves open, releasing a sweet nectar that attracts insects. Inside the trap are six short, bristly hairs sensitive to motion. When prey touches two of these hairs in quick succession—or the same hair twice—it triggers the trap’s leaf blades. The tooth-like cilia along the jaws lock together, trapping the prey as acidic enzymes begin to digest it. This unsettling process has captivated humans for centuries.

"I believe [carnivorous plants] have much more character than regular plants, even though they are still just plants," says Josh Brown, the owner and operator of San Francisco’s *Predatory Plants*. "Venus flytraps, in particular, are quite dynamic. They move faster than any other plant of their size, and that fascinates people."

The public's fascination with Venus flytraps fuels the demand for the plants, yet they remain just as difficult to cultivate from seeds as they were during Jefferson’s era. Historically, the easiest way to obtain them was through poaching.

In 1956, North Carolina enacted legislation to grant the Venus flytrap state protection. However, even with this protective status, it was still legal to harvest them from the wild under specific circumstances. With a permit and the landowner’s consent, individuals could collect flytraps from private land. Some sellers took this route, while others bypassed the legal process, walking onto state land with a shovel and bucket. If caught, the penalty was usually a small fine.

In 1981, a major development occurred that should have ended the poaching of Venus flytraps for good. In an effort to ease the pressure on wild populations targeted by poachers, William Carroll from the University of North Carolina’s botany department successfully cloned Venus flytraps for the first time in his lab. This was nothing like trying to grow them in a home garden. In a sterile petri dish, the plant thrived.

"You can simply take a piece of Venus flytrap and place it in a solution of agar, a seaweed-based gel with added nutrients, and it will begin to grow after a short time," Brown explains. Some plants carry pathogens that contaminate tissue culture, hindering healthy cell development, making it challenging to grow them in a sterile lab environment. Venus flytraps don’t suffer from this issue, and with the advent of cloning, sellers can use leaf clippings from a single plant to propagate unlimited flytraps for just pennies each.

For those with a financial interest in the Venus flytrap market, the cloning process was a remarkable success. However, it did not put an end to poaching.

On November 1, 2015, two men emerged from the tall grass of North Carolina's Orton Plantation, looking weary. Surrounded by police officers, they fled across the field several times, but eventually, Scottie Stevenson, 44, and David Lewis, 23, stopped running and surrendered, awaiting the consequences of their actions. With their hands raised, they approached the authorities and asked for water.

At that point, it wasn’t clear what the men had done. Law enforcement had been called to investigate a trespassing complaint, but the way they fled suggested a more serious crime. It only took a police dog less than 10 minutes to find the source of their panic: a backpack discarded in the grass, filled with 1,025 Venus flytraps, along with the machete used to collect them.

Stevenson and Lewis were among the first to be charged under a 2014 law created to protect Venus flytraps. Before this new legislation, the plants were protected only by the state law passed in the 1950s, with little else to safeguard them. Even if poachers took hundreds of them from federal land, as many did during the 1990s and 2000s, the harshest penalty they could face was a $50 fine.

On December 1, 2014, North Carolina elevated the penalty for poaching Venus flytraps from a misdemeanor to a Class H felony. This means that stealing even a single plant could result in prison time, with each plant stolen being considered an additional offense.

After Stevenson and Lewis were arrested, they were held on a $1 million bond—an amount typically reserved for murder suspects. They were eventually charged and convicted on one felony count. More recently, in March 2019, a poacher was charged with 216 felony counts—one for each Venus flytrap he took from the Green Swamp Preserve.

It’s too soon to determine whether the new law effectively deters poachers, but conservationists remain skeptical. “I think some of the poachers aren’t aware that it’s a felony to poach Venus flytraps in most of the North Carolina counties where it occurs,” says Johnny Randall, the director of conservation at the North Carolina Botanical Garden at Chapel Hill, speaking to Mytour.

Flytrap poachers are often locals, sometimes from families that have been collecting the plants for generations. “An ordinary person wouldn’t venture through a wet pine savanna or the areas where Venus flytraps grow,” Randall explains. “There are canebrake rattlesnakes, plenty of biting insects. It’s not an easy environment to navigate. The poachers, however, are familiar with these areas, having grown up in such environments.”

Poachers typically enter Venus flytrap habitats with machetes and pillowcases, and according to Randall, one person can harvest up to 500 plants in an hour, meaning that a single raid can cause significant damage to local populations. Randall adds, “The unfortunate individuals being paid 25 cents per plant are simply trying to scrape by in economically struggling parts of North Carolina. While they are breaking the law, they’re not the true villains in this situation.”

So, who is truly responsible for the poaching? Experts believe that, in most cases, local poachers are merely the middlemen, doing the hard work for larger buyers and pocketing only a small portion of the profits. However, the exact forces behind the Venus flytrap black market are still unclear, especially considering the plant's widespread availability.

Conservationists have their own suspicions. Randall suggests that pharmaceutical companies, such as Carnivora from Germany, may be involved, as they use Venus flytrap extract for supplements. Carnivora's website claims the plant has immune-boosting properties, branding it as 'the original natural discovery from Europe.' However, in an email to Mytour, the company clarified that they do not use wild plants for their products, stating, 'We have our own production facility in the U.S., and our manufacturing process ensures no plants from wild habitats are used.'

Don Waller, a conservation biologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, believes that rare plant collectors overseas may be fueling much of the poaching activity. Despite lab-grown flytraps being identical to their wild counterparts, some buyers place more value on wild plants. “Interestingly, it's European collectors who are quite obsessed with owning a wild, collected plant,” he explains. “They are willing to delve into the dark web to acquire poached plants, as they perceive them as superior to those cultivated commercially.”

While poaching certainly harms Venus flytrap populations, it isn’t the primary factor behind the species' decline. Conservationists agree that habitat loss poses a much larger threat, along with the lack of fire, which plays a crucial role in maintaining the plants’ environment.

The region around Wilmington, North Carolina, which lies at the heart of the Venus flytrap's natural range, has experienced rapid urbanization in recent years. The wet savannas that once nurtured thriving flytrap populations have been replaced by golf courses and shopping centers. 'The populations now are fewer than they used to be, and they are more isolated, separated by roads or inhospitable environments,' says Waller. 'Whenever a population is fragmented, it becomes increasingly susceptible to local extinction.'

The Venus flytrap's native habitat is no longer the secure environment it once was, meaning that simply planting flytrap clones into swamps is not enough to preserve the species in the wild. However, the most significant challenge for the plant, according to conservationists, is fire. Though technically a swamp, the area becomes dry enough to support forest fires after a few days of intense sun. These regular fires are crucial for maintaining the ecosystem; they clear away old plant matter, leaving fertile ground for new growth.

For centuries, wildfires, whether sparked by lightning or the sun's heat, would burn until they naturally extinguished. In some regions, Native Americans even set controlled burns to manage the land. However, this natural cycle changed with the arrival of European colonists in North America. Fires were viewed as destructive forces to be suppressed. While fire control saved lives and property in many cases, it also disrupted the region’s ecological balance. Venus flytraps, in particular, suffered as fire suppression allowed taller shrubs to overtake and overshadow the low-growing plants.

Even in nature preserves that conduct controlled burns, the future of the Venus flytrap remains uncertain. As climate change causes rising sea levels globally, flooding will become more frequent, and the low-lying coastal plains where flytraps thrive are increasingly at risk.

'A significant portion of the Venus flytrap population could be at risk, even with just a meter or two of sea level rise,' says Waller. Rising temperatures could also make their current habitats unsuitable. 'These plants will have to move northward if they are to adapt to their changing climate, but it will be difficult for them to do so if their populations are small and scattered,' he adds.

Unlike many animal species, Venus flytraps cannot escape immediate threats. Fortunately, conservationists are devising innovative strategies to help protect them.

The Venus flytrap may face many challenges, but it's not without hope. One effective measure to safeguard its habitat is the creation of more nature reserves, such as the Green Swamp. Once established, wildlife managers can keep the land healthy through controlled burns. In the Green Swamp Preserve, setting fire to the land at regular intervals has become a key conservation strategy. After planning the burn, officials choose a day with ideal weather conditions (not too windy, not too dry) to light the supervised fire. Although the flytraps burn along with the surrounding brush, the next generation that emerges can flourish without the competition of overgrown vegetation.

According to Waller, one of the most crucial steps in securing the species’ future is granting it federal protection. He is a leading figure in the effort to add the Venus flytrap to the Endangered Species List. In 2016, he spearheaded a petition and launched an online campaign to gain recognition for the plant.

This isn't the first time that scientists have pushed for protection for the Venus flytrap. The plant was considered for listing in the early 1990s but was rejected by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service due to a lack of sufficient evidence. However, scientists are hopeful this time will be different. 'Its decline since the 1990s, when the Fish and Wildlife Service last considered it for protection, is the basis for our petition,' Waller explains. 'This is no longer a plant that's just hypothetically in trouble—it is rapidly approaching a crisis and needs the protection of the Endangered Species Act.'

Under the Endangered Species Act, a species qualifies as endangered if it faces the threat of extinction throughout its entire range or a significant portion of it. The Fish and Wildlife Service is currently considering listing the Venus flytrap for protection for the second time. If added to the list, the federal government would be required to identify critical habitats for the plant and implement special management measures. This could involve funding for existing nature reserves, supporting the creation of new reserves in at-risk areas, and halting any federal activities that could harm the species.

Dale Suiter, an endangered species biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service, tells Mytour that research is underway to determine whether the Venus flytrap qualifies for protection. 'We are collaborating with the North Carolina Natural Heritage Program, which is conducting a status survey. This involves revisiting as many populations as possible during this growing season and the next. Once the results of this two-year study are in, we will evaluate the data and make a decision regarding the species' future,' he explains.

However, the species’ market success could present a challenge. 'Some people argue that the plant shouldn't be listed as endangered,' says Waller. 'Either they believe the plant is thriving, which it’s not, or they realize there are many flytraps grown in captivity. They reason that if you can buy one at a local store, why should it be on the Endangered Species List?'

Indeed, adding the Venus flytrap to the Endangered Species List requires careful management. Listing a common houseplant could have unintended consequences. If conservation laws fail to distinguish between flytraps propagated in labs and those from the wild, some people in the carnivorous plant business fear their livelihoods could be at risk.

'If the plant were made illegal in the U.S., it would likely drive its wild populations to extinction, as the black market value would skyrocket,' says Joel Garner, who operates the online store Joel's Carnivorous Plants. 'The Venus flytrap is one of the most mass-produced plants in the U.S., so banning it would shut down a huge market. In this case, good intentions could lead to exactly the opposite of the desired outcome,' he adds.

An endangered status for the Venus flytrap wouldn’t necessarily spell the end of the industry. Pitcher plants, another popular carnivorous plant, are highly endangered, yet stores can still sell them as long as they can prove the plants were cultivated in labs or nurseries. Despite these provisions, Venus flytrap sellers might still be hesitant about the bureaucracy they'd have to deal with under more stringent conservation laws.

Waller is aware of the challenges this could present, and he has already proposed potential solutions. In a paper published in the Carnivorous Plant Newsletter [PDF], Waller and co-author Thomas Gibson suggest that commercial growers and authorities should collaborate to create a habitat conservation plan before any new laws are enacted.

The plan they propose takes something that has hindered the Venus flytrap’s protection efforts in recent years—its commercial appeal—and turns it into an asset. By adding a $.25 to $.50 surcharge on each plant sold, vendors could raise funds to support conservation initiatives. The paper estimates that such a scheme could generate millions of dollars annually for acquiring new flytrap habitats and preserving existing ones. An added bonus would be that each plant sold would come with a tag informing buyers that their purchase helps protect the species in the wild, thus raising awareness among those most likely to care.

'People are incredibly enthusiastic about Venus flytraps,' says Waller. 'They buy them in large quantities, sometimes they kill them, but in the meantime, they feed them insects. What an amazing plant.'