The Orchid Thieves

Park biologist Mike Owen had been on the job only two months when he got a startling phone call. It was the park manager. Come to the parking lot, he said. What happened next would inspire a book and, coming this fall, a movie starring Nicholas Cage. Owen headed to the main parking lot of southern Florida’s Fakahatchee Strand State Park, which harbors the nation’s largest concentration of wild orchids.

He quickly noticed the bags filled with orchids, which had been plucked from his park by the lanky guy now standing near a flatbed truck. Park manager Mike Petty had stopped the nonplussed thief and his three Seminole Indian companions as they emerged from the woods carrying their bounty. 

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