Something smells, and it’s not an orchid

A new "Orchid Thief" has emerged from the bowels of eBay to be arrested for selling endangered species. Strangely enough, the plants were stolen from exactly the same park that John Laroche, the original "Orchid Thief" from the novel and movie "Adaptation", did his poaching.

While I’m happy that eBay is minus at least one orchid poacher, I’m even more delighted by the way these kind of stories draw out journalism’s hidden drama queens:

Scent Of Orchids Started Hobbyist’s Descent Into Poaching

Gary Bienemann fell into the tender trap of orchid obsession the same way many enthusiasts do.

The Clearwater resident took up orchids as a hobby, buying
them at home supply stores starting about four years ago. At some
point, Bienemann told state investigators, the flower’s addictive
power pushed him over the line from hobbyist to poacher…

…"To desire orchids is to have a desire that can never be fully
requited,” said author Susan Orlean in the New Yorker article upon
which her book "The Orchid Thief” was based….

Delicious.

Or how about this headline:

Man finds flower’s power arresting

The affair began innocently enough, with trips to Home Depot and Lowe’s. Soon, Gary Bienemann was obsessed.

For an orchid, it seemed, he would do anything.

Even the normally prosaic Harold Koopowitch got into the spirit of things:

"it’s almost like a new universe and when you fall into it, you get ensnared. They’re big and they’re gaudy and gorgeous."

(cue the CNN music):

Boom boom boom boom. Orchid hobbyists gone bad. It could happen to you.

Then someone practical had to pipe up and spoil the mood:

"This man’s biggest problem probably was stupidity. He did it on eBay," said Paul Martin Brown, author of Wild Orchids of Florida. "I’m delighted someone has been caught. This goes on far too often."

Full Article

Scent Of Orchids Started Hobbyist’s Descent Into Poaching
By MIKE SALINERO
msalinero@tampatrib.com

TAMPA – Gary Bienemann fell into the tender trap of orchid obsession the same way many enthusiasts do.

The Clearwater resident took up orchids as a hobby, buying
them at home supply stores starting about four years ago. At some
point, Bienemann told state investigators, the flower’s addictive
power pushed him over the line from hobbyist to poacher.

Bienemann, 47, was charged in March with unlawful harvesting,
possession and sale of endangered, protected and threatened species of
orchids. He paid an undetermined fine for the misdemeanor
offense. He could not be reached for comment.

Like John Laroche, the poacher immortalized in the book “The
Orchid Thief” and the movie based on the book, “Adaptation,”
Bienemann started craving the species that were off-limits,
officials said.

“Bienemann said he became somewhat obsessed with the plants
and approximately one and a half years ago, he began to illegally
harvest orchids which were listed by the state as protected,
endangered or commercially exploited,” an officer with the Florida
Department of Environmental Protection wrote in a narrative of the
case.

Bienemann started harvesting the banned plants from wooded
areas near Ridgemoore Boulevard and Pinellas County Road 611. He then
would sell the plants on eBay for $15 to $25 each, depending on the
size and type, the DEP officer said in his report.

Like Laroche, Bienemann increasingly desired rarer species, officials said.

“To desire orchids is to have a desire that can never be fully
requited,” said author Susan Orlean in the New Yorker article upon
which her book “The Orchid Thief” was based.

Unlike Laroche, Bienemann was not willing to tramp through the
steaming, gator-
infested wilderness of Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve to pluck the
rare ribbon orchid, officials said. Fakahatchee, on the edge of Big
Cypress Swamp, is one of the few places ribbon orchids grow.

Bienemann told investigators he bought the orchid at a nursery
show and produced receipts to prove it. The state Department of
Agriculture & Consumer Services is investigating how the seller
got the plants, according to the DEP report.

It was another endangered orchid, the dancing lady, that would
lead investigators to Bienemann. And it was another orchid lover who
would put them on his path.

The man who tipped state investigators asked not to be
identified for this article. The informant is working to preserve the
endangered species at Jonathan Dickinson State Park near Stuart,
the only place where dancing lady orchids still grow.

As an orchid hobbyist, the man said he grows the flowers at
home and occasionally visits eBay looking for exotic species. He had
noticed Bienemann’s advertisements for several years.

“The plants looked suspicious to me,” the man said, “but up
to this time they were common orchid species that could be grown from
seed.”

When he saw the ribbon and dancing lady orchids advertised, however, the man said, he was moved to take action.

“That’s a smoking gun right there,” he said. “The only way he
could have gotten those plants was to go in or have someone go in for
him and grab these plants.”

On Feb. 18 he contacted the state agriculture department, which investigates trafficking in illicit goods.

The agriculture investigators went to Bienemann’s home, but he
wasn’t there. The agents couldn’t help but notice, however, the 200
orchids in his yard. In their report, the investigators said
the endangered and threatened plants they found were removed from the
wild, not grown in a greenhouse.

The agriculture investigators tagged about 100 endangered or
threatened orchid plants in the yard with serial numbers. The tags
prohibited Bienemann from moving or selling the plants.

Bienemann didn’t contact the agriculture agents as he was
instructed to on the tags, so a DEP investigator visited him at his
Clearwater home Feb. 28. He admitted his involvement, officials
said.

Mike Owen, state biologist at Fakahatchee Strand Preserve, said
Bienemann is the first person arrested in connection with theft of
orchids from the park since Laroche in 1993. That doesn’t
mean there hasn’t been some poaching in the interim. Owen, who
testified in Laroche’s case, has documented 11 orchid plants that have
been taken in the past 11 years.

“It happens, but it’s not very common,” Owen said. “And the ones I’m monitoring are not very hard to get to.”

It’s not known whether Bienemann patterned his pilfering after
Laroche, officials said. He was, however, interested enough to read
Orlean’s book and see the movie. He told the DEP agent that
“the movie did not do the book or story justice.”

 

Reporter Mike Salinero can be reached at (813) 259-8303.