>>>In Costa Rica today, he said, there are virtually no orchids left in the wild [true ?]. All the plants [I doubt it...] have been collected by local residents and re-established in their gardens.>>>
Unless they took them all in the last 5 years then this is a bogus statement. Reporters are looking for a hook statement and gloom and doom always works. I personally saw thousands of orchids on the Guanacaste coast and around Arenal. Most of them I saw from the road so there has not been a lot of pressure on all orchids. As in all locations of the world, large, showy orchids are harder to find, but in all instances that I have tried, one can find even them if you are willing to get back into the jungle a ways. Most People are lazy and so they do not go too far away from roads. Statements such as this are common with orchids. Everyone wants to make them rare and impossible to find. I guess it is a good thing because it raises conservation awareness, but in my experience every orchid that I have gone out to find has been found, even in Costa Rica. I know that there are certain orchids that get collected to extinction, Paphs, Phrags and Cyps come to mind but most other orchids are quite common if you can get to an area that has not been developed for forestry, mining, agriculture or urban sprawl. This is the largest problem with orchids, not collecting. Jay Pfahl www.orchidspecies.com 6556 species in 645 genera _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [email protected] http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
