Plant Heist - Succulent Smuggling Documentary (SXSW Official selection)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2022
- Thousands of Succulents, millions of dollars. a real world theft of highly prized plants that are worth BIG money.
In northern California, a Game Warden uncovers an illicit network of succulent poachers after mysterious packages containing native plants are reported, and with the help of citizens, biologists, and authorities, he races against time to halt the destruction before permanent damage is inflicted on the land.
Winner of Emerald award Coronado Film Festival 2021
✳️A note from the Filmmakers
It all began with reading a news article in The New Yorker about Officer Freeling's big break. Being a succulent and plant enthusiast, I was intrigued by the story's bizarre and interesting nature, so I decided to track down Officer Freeling and give him a call to ask if he’d talk on camera. After waiting for approval from his department heads, we finally got the green light.
I set out with my sister and our friend Georgia to Mendocino. After the initial interview on the bluff overlooking the crime scene on that foggy day, we knew as we drove back to Oakland that we had the makings of a fascinating documentary subject. So we put a plan into action to track down all the key people necessary to flesh out the whole picture.
Through calling in favors for filmmaking gear, self-funding, and grassroots fundraising, we cobbled together the necessary funds to execute our vision. We are incredibly proud of what we achieved with very little money. Please share the video; the more people who know that plant poaching is a real issue, the better!
⚠️UPDATE: Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill (AB) 223 by Assembly member Chris Ward (D - San Diego) into law, making it unlawful to sell, or possess with the intent to sell, any Dudleya illegally taken from its natural habitat on state lands. AB 223 makes it unlawful to sell or possess with the intent to sell any Dudleya illegally taken from its natural habitat and establishes minimum penalties of $5,000 per plant for the first offense, and $40,000 per plant for any subsequent offenses. - ภาพยนตร์และแอนิเมชัน
I love that this guy put on his ghillie suit to catch these plant poachers.
Too bad that was for the video.
It's a surprisingly common fetish
@@jonathangehman4005rawr 😏
One of the really unfortunate things about taking Dudleyas from the wild is that many are very site specific and don't transplant well, if at all.
and theyre super easy and fast to grow from seed. none of this makes sense
@@Don-Kedik Or the pups they produce or even a leaf produces pups.
Agreed. I tried. No luck. I felt bad about it because I took it from its magical environment. Never again. Unless I get lucky enough to live nearby. ❤😊
Agree. There’s a complete disregard for these plants, that’s why they take thousands of them. If they lose a few, they’re like oh well, they’ll be back to grab more.
@@MrWolfheart111 Most dudleyas dont pup from leaves. but still, each plant makes thousands of seeds and theyre easy to grow. it's just silly to steal mature plants when u can grow the same size in a year
Ain’t no middle class nobody purchasing a $700 plant.
💯
people whom have more money than morals
@@DursunX I disagree. You don’t get a lot of money when you spend it like that.
But its immigrants that are stealing them, California's open border policies created this problem.
People spend money on stupid shit every day you're just broke
Did not know this type of activity actually existed on this scale. Very alarming
Florida has orchid poachers. Look up some YTube videos on that if you're interested. In the dead of night and through swamp filled alligator infested waters, poachers look for our native ghost orchid. $10,000 - $25,000 per orchid!
The succulent industry in the past 20 years has become massive. MASSIVE.
Bush meat from Africa to Europe. Nobody talks about it. Donkey skins to China. Everything for traditional medicine. People ring barking massive trees to sell the bark to witch-doctors. Body Human body parts harvesting. Even our educated ministers do not make a decision without consulting a sangoma.
Why?
@@KansasClity-wq3pn over the years more and more professional gardeners started featuring them in their water conservation gardens. They were kind of obscure before that. I was an assistant to an artist in Pasadena and helped to create a permaculture garden which had two nicely sized succulent walls. It won the garden of the year. Their pastel colors and semetry can be quite breathtaking.
This issue needs more coverage, so, thank you for making and producing this video
Thank you and agreed!
I’m going to help spread this amongst like minded individuals.
Situations like this really are concerning.
If the plants are gone what will California have left.
Drove from Palm springs to san Francisco with my late wife back in 2015. The succulents we saw on the cliffs off California 1 were stunning.
Loved the last part where volunteers replanted some of the confiscated succulents.
These plants are part of our ecological treasure that belong to us all. Which is why foreigners taking them is such a slap in the face.
Fully Agree!
Whether they’re a foreigner or from Columbus, OH, it is wrong.
What sucks about a straight replanting after confiscation is that it takes expensive testing to make sure that you aren't introducing pathogens foreign to that soil ecosystem when doing so. Once you rip a poached and further transported plant out of its endemic soil you have effed everything up.
i wanna volunteer!
someone give Pat Freeling a medal.
It's heartwarming to know over 1000 poached plants were replanted, but isn't that a miniscule amount considering the several thousands which were poached?
and your point...why are you undermining the outcome. would you prefer nothing was planted? because you should be happy.
$10,000 fine 2 years in jail is petty and will not deter this from continuing.
They should be deported
These are so easy to grow from seed. I propagate them in my kitchen in Dollar Tree seedling trays.
Agreed!
I love you Pat Freeling. Good man. It's a huge problem here in Texas too. In our small community in Austin, we embrace widespread public shaming of plant poaching. In these days of social media it seems to have a good impact.
What kinds of plants are they poaching in Austin? When I’ve headed on the outskirts and surrounding towns, been a little over two years now, I saw y’all were having problems with giant hogweed and wisteria just swallowing up other plants. All on what seemed like private property and it sucks because trying to protect the natural plants is hard then added invasive species make it way more difficult.
This reminds me of Tulip Mania. Plants have a hidden life that most of us aren’t aware of.
Also the hat plumage craze of the late 1800s that caused the extinction of hundreds of bird species. read a book called the feather thief. multi faceted book and a great read.
As someone who lives near this coastline, I find this incredibly sad and angering at the same time. Thank you CA Fish and Wildlife. I hope you are continuing the monitor. I’ll continue to do my part and report poachers.
Best start cultivating those succulents for trade. Jobs created, money earned and helping these rare species to thrive. A win win story unfolding.
Anyone in horticulture knows how simple it is the produce succulents. Stupid to destroy habitat when it’s so easy to grow them.
I hated learning this when it was at its peak. My friends and I actually took a couple of trips to the coast to see if we could catch anyone.
Kudos to our Fish and Game AKA Fish and Wildlife Wardens, they do s great job as it is, but in these cases they really hit hard and fast. Another kudos to the justice system for handing down severe fines and jail time. We only have one ecosystem which is under tremendous threat already, we need to do all we can to help it from further damage
I “like” how the lady in the thumbnail covering her face is literally know to the world now. Ooopsie!
Thanks for this! " 🌵 Only take photos! and don't buy poached plants 🦊 "
100% agree! Wild plant photos are super fun to get!
@@SiblingRivalry772 Agreed!
'take nothing but photographs,
leave nothing but footprints'
a mantra i learnt as a child. made me a better adult.
Thank you Game wardens for protecting our plants and keeping our natural beauty and erosion at bay...😢
Similarly, the population of Astrophytum asterias (cactus) is considered vulnerable. Gardeners should be aware of what they buy and its status in the wild. Some of these plants are slow growing and will not replenish itself at the rate it’s being removed.
The sad thing is you can so easily propagate these in a greenhouse rather than erode or destroy habitat.
The most lucrative thing about "rare" species and poaching for East Asia is not so much the product than it is the story behind how they got it. There is an allure around the fact that it's extremely rare and detrimental to the environment once taken. The trade may still go on not for the plant but for the fact that it's from the "California coast" - a very sad and gross obsession
Some good news in east Asia. Most Dudleyas are safe now. Because they have been widely propagated by Chinese farmers. Farmers produce them in the way of producing vegetables~~ Farmers have figured out how to sow them and made them grow 10x than in nature. Only one greenhouse can produce hundreds of thousands of them. So the price slumped to only as the 1% from $300 in 2017 to $4 in 2023 for a typical cutie. So there is no financial reward for poaching. But there is still some concerns about hunting for "new unseen species"
It's VERY easy to propagate echevaria species, because EACH LEAF can become a new plant with propagation. I hate echevaria but women here love them. I'm more a cactus guy, have about 400, mainly trichocereus.
@@OffGridInvestorit’s easy to propagate from a leaf but it takes forever. And ever. And forever.
Slower than an echeveria?
theyre super easy from seed. glad theyre growing them from seed now.
Are you trying to justify their behavior?
This is old but the rare ones are still sought after.
Bro is the delta force of succulents 😂 👏🏻 good shit lol
Just grow from seeds. Jeez
Exactly. I heard propagating them are easy too. I just got my first this year. $2 clearance in Walmart.
I noticed one that was struggling and almost dead on the edge of a parking lot near Bodega Bay a few years ago. It looked like it had been stepped on or dug up. I moved it over a few feet to where another patch was growing well and replanted it. When I went back to the same area the following year there were a lot more growing well in the same area but then I went back 2 years later and there weren’t very many at all. I assumed they just died off but now I wonder if someone came through a poached a bunch. We try to go to that area every year or 2 and I never knew poaching them was a thing. It’s very unfortunate.
That’s why this video is great, makes you question what you experienced. You did a good thing, for trying to save the plant. Thank you 😌🙏🏽🌟🕊️
Great high quality video, very unfortunate to see this type of behavior.
Glad you enjoyed it
could you imagine a world where police had the same heart and soul as a wildlife ranger?
Like the difference between police and fire fighters.
When you hate one, you hate all. You are no better.
@@kittenpawsbb I'm for sure better
I hate police I do not hate mailpeople or office workers or the military, I hate the swat team, but i do not hate the bomb squad or the park rangers, I hate K9 units using dogs to attack humans, but i do not hate the k9 itself.
I've never beatin a defenseless person, Ive never shot anyone, Ive never abused my power, Ive never sent someone to jail for what they didnt do, Ive never lied in cour or stolen from the government.
YES WE ARE DIFFERENT
@@marsenarichmond2208 yes exactly what I'm trying to explain. why do we love some but hate others. what is it? they are all bad guys and we want them to be punished but what is it about police we all hate
@@commentforthealgo5383 Satan is hate. When you hate one, you hate all. I wish you well. #SeekGod 😌🙏🏽🌟🕊️
Reading the orchid thief has shown me that people go nuts for flowers
Made me happy to see Brett at the Arboretum for a second! Great Documentary!
Thank you to everyone involved in this situation. Amazing people. The laws really don't mean anything unless they are enforced, and we need more people to care about our plant species all over the globe.
People can be so awful
Fantastic film, thank you for sharing the story.
$200. for a succulent? They could have just as easily bought them legally online for a small fraction of the cost. Or did I miss something?
At the time of these thefts you could not buy any Dudleya Farinosa other than those stolen from the wild. Thankfully you can now find Dudleya Farinosa for sale from many nurseries in California including Home Depot and ACE thanks to a concerted effort to flood the market from commercial horticulturist, this effort did take time to achieve. Unfortunately wild plant poaching continues to be a problem with other species.
where do you think all the "rare" succulents come from? They are poached from the locations they are native and cultivated for sale.
This has happened with several varieties of plants over decades. For whatever reason, succulents have become a massive problem.
Venus fly traps in North Carolina are dealing with the same issue. People have been trying to poach them for who knows how long. Fun fact, they are native only to a small area there and nowhere else.
3:55
Good to know that in California you are subject to search just for using a rental. Same way out of state plates are treated when they see a shade of tint too dark.
Send these thieves to prison! 🌵
No kidding we’ll defend our native plants like Dudleya. And thank you for such a great presentation.
Thank you for your great work.
This was very interesting, who knew those succulents were creating a demand in the black market. This needs more exposure.
Glad you think so. Agreed!
I have personally witnessed this in New Mexico, hundreds and hundreds of agaves being stripped off hillsides, even from federal lands.
I am so glad to see the plants are getting replanted.
Really great show. Thank you.
This officer rocks! Very passionate!
this is such an excellent and well made documentary! I've made similar ones on poached plants from south america. would love to see more from this channel!
Glad you liked the doc👍
The lady, Guanrong Rivera, was charged with grand theft, vandalism, conspiracy and filing a false document-good, but as the DA stated, there’s no point in having environmental laws if you’re not enforcing them. So, was Guanrong charged with anything else, environment-related? "Damage to the environment" or "deforestation" or something? I get that it’s "grand theft" against the planet, in a sense, but I just wondered if she was charged with anything specific.
She wasn't charged with anything beyond what you see in the film, but check out the update below the video in the description. Since that case, California has given the law a lot more "teeth," and I was told that this film played a direct role in getting that bill signed into law. We thought that was pretty awesome!
They caught the criminals in a sting operation.
Keep up the good work rangers.
There needs to be a public education campaign in Asia about how their consumption has an environmental impact on the places of origin of these plants. Educate the consumers…
I work for a botanical garden and am always conscious of how the plants _may_ have been collected. Thailand has a problem with orchid poachers.
The sad part is how lenient the penalties are. This is why this is on-going. You threaten someone running a major ring with a 10k fine and 2 years jail as the max offense...that's nothing. They had more than 10k in plants. 2 years is worth the risk to many of these people. If this was say 5 - 7 years in jail, now they will question it.
WELL DONE!!!!
I was very sad to see two women stealing chalk dudleyas while walking in our local regional park. I told them what they were doing was illegal.
🤫
Did you try calling the police
It’s worth a try.
If that's all you did, that's not enough you should have called the police
I would have stealthily took their photo so they don’t notice And IMMEDIATELY call the police /park rangers where they are and email them the photo so they could search them.
Great story.
Thanks Erik!
This also a cultural problem as people from south East Asian cultures (china specifically) just cannot comprehend the concept of environmental protection
Dope doc
I was not aware. They should post signs to tell tourists to photograph and report people stealing plants.
In the 1970's & 1980's, I was living in the Bay Area & my hobby was house plants, including many succulents. The cost of buying succulents legally back then was trivial. In fact, I'm surprised that they take so many years to mature because it certainly wasn't reflected in the retail prices back then. But, after all, a succulent is just a plant. So the idea that anyone anywhere in the World would pay $100's of for just one of them is simply absurd & only goes to prove PT Barnum's infamous dictum that "There's a SUCKER born every minute."
The same thing is happening with French Bourdeax wines. Rich people in China have driven up the price of French wine to sometimes $1000/bottle & store them in vault as an "investment", never to be tasted. All this for what is basically fermented grape juice.
Getting too much money too quickly can make some people STUPID, apparently even in China.
"A fool and his money are soon parted." - Aesop. 😂😮😂
One of the reasons these plants are poached from the wild is because they grow different colors and stronger(bigger) due to the unique weather conditions on the coast/cliffs that cannot be recreated in nurseries. So even if you can grow from a seed or a leaf - it won’t have the same “look”… making wild plants so expensive 😢
2000 plants stolen valued at $50-$700 per plant…$10k fine is a joke.
What a documentary.
Grow your own!!!! Jesus Christ!
too true, i grow succulents and once you have a leaf its so easy to get a healthy renewable crop. dont get some people who feel the need to steal ones from the wild
I wondered the same thing. Fast money, some of those plants took 30 years to grow.
@@michelleburkholder2547 no they don’t. They reproduce like welfare recipients.
It is all about money! Move in to take as many plants as possible, as quickly as possible to sell them and make big money.
Well that's just sad, I'm a new plantmom and the best part about it is watching them grow everyday, waiting to see any new change. I can't imagine what would be the satisfying about a stolen succulent
I agree! It is a strange phenomena, happens with giant Saguaro cactus's too out of Arizona
I’ll keep an eye out during hikes.
Wow, I wondered about succulents, cactus landscaping plants, especially the big ones, the valuable ones, years ago I wondered where they were stolen from.
Do NOT think that plants are ONLY poached in the wild or by foreigners. Thieves will take them from YOUR FRONT YARD! A friend of mine has seen her own NEIGHBORS taking or even destroying plants in her yard. When confronted some had the audacity to claim it wasn't her property! This is in an upscale neighborhood where they clearly have the means to go buy one. Just WOW. 😳
Just if they realized they could have propagated these plants from very little
This pisses me off, thank you to all the Monterey officials who are working to stop this. They are destroying our environment!
They’re not just taking some plants, they’re taking the ecosystem
we have a prehistoric tree in Australia called a Wollemi Pine, thought to be extinct until a recent discovery in an undisclosed valley.
the location is still a national secret, but the seedlings from the mother plant are now readily available to buy from legitimate sources.
thankfully this practice has minimised the desire to poach... however, there will always be mega-rich collectors or ruthless pirates that want to own/steal the world.
Parks should instruct park goers to REPORT / photograph what they see. Like in Africa locals notify the local authorities when they see signs of poachers.
They would make it illegal if they caught someone selling blades of Grass for profit.
This is messed up I collect sucllents I buy from mountain crest gardens and live in South Carolina
so m if you clone a succulent from a small single stem or leaf and its a clone of the "wild" one is it still illegal?? and if you do it on a grand scale , . even when one sheds a seed to regenerate itself and you pick it up is it illegal to clone it ??
People steal and then sell weird stuff. Such a bizarre concept. I guess there is nothing too obscure for humans to covet and then turn into objects of greed. I live here and I see these plants everywhere along the coast and many in beautiful front yard gardens. I once brought home a tiny little clipping of one of these very plants. It was growing on a cliff in Mendocino. I tried to get it to grow in my Bay Area garden but it didn’t work out. Obviously they need a misty ocean front view to properly grow. They really are beautiful and otherworldly.
What I don’t understand is why they are having to snatch up so many of these plants. Anyone who understands how succulents work knows that all you need to make another plant is the leaf of or even part of a leaf. Why couldn’t they just keep growing them to sell in a greenhouse?
This makes me so angry. But I’m glad there are laws being enforced.
That's so stupid it's so easy to propagate them from the neighbors you don't need to buy any succulents!
Awsome story
🔥
I'm more a cactus guy. Everything I get is from local nurseries. I have about 400 and A FEW are some of the most insane things you've seen but I often only have one of the real unique ones. Hate echevaria and anything that looks like it. Only have 2.
To each his own I guess 😊. I love the echeveria, but I also am fond of cactus and cacti. Succulents are true survivors.
I thot this video was a joke...! But I see that it is NOT.
WILD...plant poachers.
Wow theyre beaYOUtiful...!
I sit and watch this, these plants cover the drywalls my ancestors built.....we call them "Guard houses" - dont know why, but they are full of chemical to treat skin problems
can you imagine what is happening in under developed countries, where the is less appreciation and enforcement? or where agents are susceptible to bribery?
They know it's illegal, then its poaching? Right !
Sorry that punishment was a insult to the Natural Nature being Poached the Poachers spent more than the punishments 😂
Erosion is sad and especially how long they last.
I mean... those plants are hard to reproduce? how hard is to reproduce those artificially once you got a few of them? like from seeds... or one branch, instead the whole thing.
I grow San Pedro cacti and some of the cuts can go fo thousands of dollars! At least wth San Pedro you can eat it and get high.
Indeed! big fan of San Pedro!
Soooooooo much more to San Pedro than getting high
fines and prison isnt enough imo
$10,000 fine at $500/plant is basically 20 plants. Slap on the wrist.
who the hell can sell a tiny plant for $500
@@Don-Kedikmore like 10 dollars I bet
@@JasperKlijndijk probably. you can buy seed grown Dudleyas in garden centers for about that much
I did it once with one plant. Didn't think to much about it... will never do it again....
I feel bad. I've seen it happen in patrolia omn the rocks by the ocean. Lets stop it they are beautiful
I mention this all the time when people go to these sales overseas and they say you have to get there before they open because they have these great plants . And I say yes, and they were stolen from ecosystems and these are the best plants and you have to protect these plants from destroying our ecology our ecosystem is being raped in pillaged and if you’re a plant person and you see these people talking online, ask them how they feel about this that way at least you’ll be getting word out to the other plant people who are watching this channel toosee their great and wonderful hundreds of plants that they have that you know are so big that they had to have been stolen because it would take so long to have grown them that size
SXSW will take any dang film
I don’t know what the guys were stealing from Point Lobos but they had scuba suits on and were carrying bags as there returned back to their van to put their street clothes back on in the parking lot. I reported them immediately to the park rangers. U are not supposed to be in the water at all there. It is a natural preserve.
I remember seeing a doc about china planting metal stems,metal round flowers. They were being spray painted green ,along freeways and its been a while but there were also artificial fields, i bet this has something to do with robbing americas foliage.
So… the bright-light at the post office ruined everyone’s cover, hahaha. “Shhhh. Something very valuable,” he says as he “pointed towards the ocean”. 🙄 Good going! 👏🏽 jk
At least their willing to work for it ..
This also has happened to wild edible mushrooms . I used to pick tan oak mushrooms on and around my property to eat but every year there were less and less because foreigners would come in and rake the forest ground taking everything..
here in FL the local m3thh3ads raid the state forest for palmetto berries which they sell to local nurseries. Its illegal for nurseries to take in these berries but they'll happily pay 20-30$ a pound
You can steal whatever you want in SF, not get charged, and be let out but if you go inti the wilderness to take some plants they throw the book at you.
Right or wrong, anything you buy in store is replaceable. Our native ecosystems are not.
Horrible behavior…. What a crisis for everyone…