Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 22, 1993 TAG: 9307220009
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
At least that's how Gene Parker with the National Park Service sees it. Since May, his park rangers have charged eight people with poaching the prized plant root along the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Two of those people were caught over the weekend.
Ginseng poaching is nothing new. Parker said he has busted poachers along the parkway for years. Ginseng root fetches as much as $300 per pound on the export market.
What is troubling this time, however, is the number of people charged already this year, Parker said. Most poachers are caught during ginseng's harvesting season during the fall.
This early poaching could have a devastating effect on the ginseng plant population, according to Parker. Ginseng already is on Virginia's threatened species list. He said harvesting it this early in the year kills its ability to reproduce.
The problem stretches beyond the Blue Ridge Parkway. In Bedford County, state game wardens have charged five people with illegally digging the plant - the first-ever ginseng charges authorities in the county can remember.
Parker and Bedford Game Warden Steve Pike said they believe people are poaching ginseng to generate income.
Wild ginseng is a small plant whose bitter roots are coveted for their alleged curative and aphrodisiac powers. It flourishes naturally in only a few regions of the world, including the mountains of Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia. China imports 90 percent of the ginseng harvested in the United States.
It is not wholly illegal to dig ginseng, however.
In Virginia, there is a legal season, from Aug. 15 through December, to harvest the root from state-owned and private lands. The state even licenses authorized ginseng dealers.
There also is a legal season, from Sept. 15 through the end of December, to dig ginseng on national forest lands, but not on national park lands. There is no legal season along the Blue Ridge Parkway.
That's one reason why ginseng poachers are common along the parkway, Parker said. They believe ginseng is plentiful on parkway property because it supposedly is never harvested.
It also is potentially safer to collect ginseng along the parkway, where the penalties are not severe for poachers. Most violators are fined and ordered not to illegally hunt ginseng anymore. On private land, where trespassers may find hostile landowners who closely guard their ginseng crops, poaching can be more dangerous.
An experienced ginseng hunter, Parker said, can collect 3 or 4 pounds of ginseng root in a day, which when dried yields about a pound of the root that then can be exported.
But Parker contends it is not really the experienced ginseng hunters who are the problem. He makes a distinction between hunters and poachers. Hunters, he said, generally comply with the restrictions on ginseng harvesting.
Poachers are the ones who dig ginseng out of season and before the plant matures, Parker said. It takes eight years for a ginseng plant to reach full maturity.
It reproduces by dropping berries that do not develop until late summer. That is why the digging season on ginseng doesn't start until August and September.
Parker said he worries about what he sees as a growing breed of greedy poachers, and their effect on ginseng's future in Virginia. "They have a lot less respect for the population," he said.
Pike pointed to the economics. A day's work can bring in $300, and the only equipment required is a screwdriver and a sack.
"It doesn't cost a guy anything to walk through the woods," he said.
by CNB