Plant Poachers Pluck Park Moss, Profit From Sales To Nurseries

PORT ANGELES - Brush harvesters, who glean leaves and mosses from the woods for sale to florists and nurseries, are expanding illegally into the Olympic National Park, rangers say.

The poachers leave brown swatches in the lush green as they rip handfuls of moss from the trunks of giant spruce and vine maple.

Recently a ranger found tracks and two big sacks in an area west of Lake Crescent where moss had been stripped from the ground and trees.

One of the bags was stuffed with 45 pounds of moss, packed almost rock-hard. Park workers found two more bags of moss along Highway 101 outside the park boundary.

Moss and brush picking are allowed in some areas with a state Department of Natural Resources permit. But it is illegal to pick, kill or take any living thing from a national park.

Penalties for plant poaching in the park for profit range from a $50 fine to a felony charge.

Salal is the most common plant harvested. Like a few other Peninsula plants, it stays green long after picking and is used by florists in flower arrangements.

Brush harvesting is not new. But more people are doing it these days, and some of them are finding easy pickings in the park.

"We know it's been going on, but never at these levels," said one ranger. "I think that it's an activity of opportunity - that they have found areas inside the park to be convenient."

So, what's a salal leaf here, a wad of moss there?

"If it only occurred once, it wouldn't be any big deal," the ranger said. "But it's not something that generally occurs only once."