Viateur who said: >Peter (Croezen) :
>Thanks for the help in trying to locate the sentences given to >Selby/Higgins in the kovachii cause. >apart from the press article of which you sent me a copy (14 April 2004), >there was another one published on 20 June 2004 which also reports about >the sentences : http://www.sptimes.com/2004/06/11/State/Controversy_over_orch.shtml >although, not updated, there is an interesting summary about the events >surrounding the kovachii saga : http://www.greenzoo.net/trouble.htm >for example, I was not aware of the following info : >As to the orchid's fate: the editor of Orchid Digest went to Peru to find >out. He reported that the original colony was stripped clean, however he >did see 1,000 more plants growing on a remote cliff in the Andes." >Was that colony stipped too ? Viateur First of all, the article I sent you contains all the details of the Selby/Higgins sentences you were looking for. Except, that one name is screwed up and should have been International Code of Botanical Nomenclature The second article you dug up is of June 2004 and written by Craig Pittman of the St Petersburg Times. Craig first wrote about Phragmipedium kovachii on Feb 11, 2003, eight months after the story broke and had been covered in many newspaper articles. In this article Craig speaks mostly of Kovach, who had just changed his Jan 2004 "not guilty" plea to "guilty." The Phragmipedium kovachii story is quite involved: only a fraction of it is covered in some 25 newspaper articles from June 2002 until December 2003 and a few more since then mostly concerning the USDOJ and sentencing. The first substantial article about the involvements of Kovach and Selby was written by Georgia Tasker of the Miami Herald August 11 2002. A more comprehensive article was written by Chris Grier Sarasota Herald Tribune Sep 1 2002. The account of "Dr. Harold Koopowitz's and company" trip to the larger Phragmipedium habitat can be found in Orchid Digest Vol 67(3). This is the very same habitat that supplied the ten legal Phragmipedium plants in the world and contained an estimated two thousand mature plants and many seedlings. Shortly after Harold's brief visit the habitat was completely stripped of all Phragmipedium kovachii, including the seedlings. I do have the pictures of that habitat which depict the deep holes left for each plant removed and shows that more than half their roots were left behind. An awful sight!!! As far as the GreenZoo article you "dug up," it repeats one of the many fantasy stories told by Kovach. The story that Kovach had seen Phragmipdieum kovachii in 2000 , left it there and came back in 2001 to purchase it is absolutely false, as is the story told Selby scientists that in 2002 he went back to the habitat three days after he "found" Phragmipedium kovachii. I do not believe you would want to get into the other 90% of the story, which covers intrigue and politics of this case and is far more intriguing than any case in Eric Hansen's Orchid Fever.
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