WILD LEEK IN TROUBLE
Poachers pillaging the countryside as demand for a forest delicacy grows
Commercial poachers strike
There are poachers in our midst and they are ravaging our wild spaces.
No, I’m not talking about disappearing native trilliums or other spring perennials, or even hunters taking more than their fair share.
The wild leek is in trouble. Like many things that are rare, their stock has risen among seasonal locavores and chefs so that poachers are responding by pillaging the local countryside.
Allium tricoccum, also known as wild leek, ramps, wild garlic, spring onion and ramson, is an ephemeral bulbous plant that grows in hardwood forests in the eastern half of North America. Its leaves first appear in the early spring (as early as March, if the weather is mild) but all evidence of its foliage disappears by the heat of June.
So, you won’t be able to see them now, but their bulbs are still growing under the forest floor and you will need to remember this when they appear on menus or at markets in the spring.
Native Americans valued this local onion long before Scottish botanist William Aiton named it botanically in 1789. The Ojibwa, Cherokee and Iroquois people used it medicinally and as part of their traditional cuisine. It also has been a staple spring tonic among the people who live in the Appalachian Mountains. One online video shows an enterprising man, describing himself as a trained precision machinist from central Ohio, digging entire colonies of ramps to “enhance his income.”
According to Kristl Walek, the owner of Gardens North, a Canadian seed house that sells an international selection of rare, hardy perennial and woody plant seed, wild leek foraging has gotten way out of hand.
Walek collects seed for her business, including that of wild leek, but says, “I am a very ethical seed collector — I search out large, thriving colonies of particular species, and then limit myself to small amounts of seed.”
The problem with harvesting wild leek for eating is that the entire plant is dug including the bulb, so there is little left to help re-generate the population. A wild leek seed takes seven years to produce a harvestable bulb, so it is nowhere near viable as a short-term production crop.
For the past 20 years, Walek has re-visited a 10-acre site thick with wild leek in eastern Ontario. This year, her visit revealed that opportunistic commercial poachers had actually dug the entire area, leaving nothing behind except beer cans and junk food wrappers.
Foodies will already know that ramps are a delicacy in both fine restaurants and home cooking. The bulbs are small but pungent, the leaves, broad and flavourful — they are both delicious in salads, soups and gourmet dishes. A visit to the farmers’ markets and gourmet food stores in May will show bundles available for sale at steep prices.
Commercial harvesting of wild leek has been banned in Quebec since 1995. Only 50 plants can be harvested each season for personal use. But this hasn’t kept a black market from thriving and bulb smuggling from taking place back and forth across the Ontario-Quebec border.
Keep this in mind when you’re tempted next spring.
And in order to save the species, don’t buy those pillaged ramps.