Partial to moist, acidic soils and open understories, flytraps can be found in the longleaf pine wetlands of the coastal plains and sandhills of North Carolina. What the soils lack in nutrients, the plants make up for with their diets of ants, beetles, spiders, and various flying insects. Though they are carnivorous plants, like all plants, flytraps still photosynthesize to get energy from the sun. 

This is a prescribed fire newsletter, so naturally Flytraps have something to do with fire! Venus Flytraps rely on prescribed fire to keep the understory open, and they are usually one of the first species to come back after a fire. Thus begins a story we as fire practitioners have heard too often; the perils of fire suppression. As fire was removed from the landscape, understories became dominated by water-sucking shrubs and undesirable regen, lowering the water table and shading out carnivorous plants. The Flytraps were easily outcompeted.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (U.S. FWS) recently evaluated the need to list the species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). This past July, the U.S. FWS published their review and stated the species does not warrant listing, largely due to conservation efforts of local organizations like The Nature Conservancy, the North Carolina Botanical Garden, and state and federal agencies.

“With 98% of the known Venus flytrap plants occurring in healthy populations, projections indicate it can thrive under current conditions well into the future,” said Mike Oetker, Acting U.S. FWS Regional Director for the Southeast Region. 

This does not mean the Flytrap is without threat. Habitat loss due to development and agriculture is still a huge threat, as is poaching. While not federally listed, the Flytrap is listed as a state-threatened species. You can look, but don’t touch! It is a felony to poach them…