Thieves have been stealing exotic and endangered plants at the Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino.
Officials at the gardens in San Marino say some thieves are visitors scooping up plants. Other are supplying the a growing black market.Thieves have been helping themselves to exotic and sometimes endangered plants at the Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino, and officials are hoping public attention to the problem will help to solve it.
The Botanical Gardens’ associate director, Sean Lahmeyer said a groundskeeper discovered the most recent theft – a succulent plant he calls a"cultivar," meaning it was hybridized by horticulturists to create a new variant.To underscore the problem, Lahmeyer and his staff have installed signs at locations where plants have gone missing.Then, a QR code is displayed so observers can find out more about what happened.
With more than 80,000 plants in its collection and 13,000 variants, the Huntington may present a tempting target for plant pilferers, but Lahmeyer says stepped up security and cameras will hopefully change the paradigm.Get Los Angeles's latest local news on crime, entertainment, weather, schools, COVID, cost of living and more. Here's your go-to source for today's LA news.Some of the thieves are just visitors, snapping up plants from the dirt as they pass by.
Next year, the Huntington will host an awareness campaign for"buyers, sellers and even law enforcement," said Lahmeyer. Among the tips that will be revealed: urging plant buyers to ask where their purchasers come from, their"chain of custody." He said such a campaign is necessary because the"illegal plant trade doesn’t get talked about nearly as much as the animal illegal trade."
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