Lee County’s conservation rangers are on the lookout for illegal berry pickers on county preserves. It’s the time of year when pickers will sneak into county lands to pluck saw-palmetto berries. There’s a demand especially for these berries from local buyers. They’re often used in medicinal supplements to supposedly treat prostate issues.
Ranger Shawn Iovine keeps his eyes on the perimeters of county preserves this summer. Earlier this month, he spotted five people standing on the border of the Galt Preserve on Pine Island.
“I got the binoculars out and kind of saw what they were doing. They were getting supplies out of a vehicle on the outside of the fence; bags, buckets and then they went inside the preserve. That’s when I kind of tracked down there on foot and glanced around. I saw a couple of them jump down,” he said.
He found his biggest haul of illegally picked saw-palmetto berries to date: 46 bags that were 80 to 100 pounds each.
It’s illegal to harvest anything from Lee County parks and preserves.
But, Iovine said the first two weeks of August are very busy for these pickers.
He said they’re on the hunt for the berries all across the county.
“They’ll pick them in Walmart parking lots, private lands, a lot of the public lands, a lot of our conservation sites, state lands. So wherever they grow, they see them, they’re going to try to take them for monetary gain,” he said.
Pickers can sell them to vendors in areas like Immokalee.
But, if they get caught on county lands they face penalties like a no trespassing order.
The state also recently put a moratoriumon picking these berries in state forests because they’re a main source of food for bears. At a recent state wildlife commission meeting, officials and advocates discussed the possibility that bears were moving into residential areas to forage for food because there were fewer berries for them to eat.
