Palm tree poachers plaguing the Valley

[Champ]

Some sought-after native plants fetch $3,600 at resale
By JAMES PINKERTON
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle

HARLINGEN -- For five spring weekends in a row, the plant poachers were at work at Bence Nursery.

The take included expensive topiary plants, such as spiral junipers worth $200 to $250 each, and native plants, along with pygmy date palms and bottle palms. During the weekend raids in February and March, they climbed the fence, grabbed the plants and fled into the South Texas night.

"These are just jackleg landscapers, people who started out mowing lawns, and they say, `Oh yeah, lady, I can fix your yard.' And then they come to a nursery and steal the plants, and it's 100 percent profit," explained Alvin Dunn, who has managed the nursery for 18 years. "Or take it to a flea market on the weekend; if they can sell it for a third of what we get, it's pure profit for them."

From one end of the Rio Grande Valley to the other, shadowy legions of palm rustlers, plant poachers and peyote pickers are helping themselves to an extensive -- and lucrative -- array of native plant species growing wild on private property or by nurseries, a number of plant experts and nursery owners say.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metopolitan/2599539