Then, within a 10-day period in 1993, surveillance teams in the Great Smokies arrested two different groups of ginseng poachers, each of which were leaving the park with 13 pounds of ginseng root the equivalent of about 8,000 plants. The new marking efforts have allowed enforcement officials to rein in demand for park-pilfered ginseng. As legitimate dealers learn of the program and refuse to accept marked roots, poachers are being forced out of the park. And it s also allowed for the return of confiscated roots to their native lands. According to Janet Rock, a Great Smokies botanist, more than 7,000 marked plants have been seized and replanted.
Rangers watch for the telltale signs of poachers in the woods.
Other plant poachers have posed as wildflower photographers. Once Garrison saw a car driven by a woman with a small child, leaving the park just a few minutes after sunrise. He returned at the end of the day and arrested the woman s husband and father as she picked them up after a day of illegal ginseng harvesting. Nearly 80 ginseng poachers have been convicted since the marking program began. Few doubt that poachers will continue to slip into the remote hollows, with a sharp stick and eyes searching for the five-leaved manroot.