Inside Lewis Ocean Bay Heritage Preserve, a dense 9,000+ acre wildlife preserve between Highways 90 and 22 in Horry County, a rare plant is making a bit of a comeback.
It's the Venus' Fly Trap.
These aren't the giant mammal-grabbing plants seen in movies and comic books.
The true Carolina original is small, delicate, and, if you don't know what you're looking for, easy to miss.
"It's a very limited area that they can grow in," said S.C. Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Biologist Deanna Ruth, who oversees the preserve. "They eat beetles, caterpillars, spiders, ants, and any type of ground-crawling insect," she said.
Ruth said the soil between the dozens of Carolina Bays--huge, circular beds of sand in the dense pine forests of Horry County and Southeastern North Carolina is the perfect place for the colonies to grow.
But the fire also made plenty of room for the plants to flourish.
"They need the fire and the sunlight it provides, and the other nutrients it feeds back into the soil after," said Ruth. "Fire was definitely a good thing for this ecosystem," she said.
Lewis Ocean Bay Heritage Preserve was purchased from timber companies about twenty years ago, and Ruth said since then, some species of plants, like the Venus' Fly Trap, have stayed dormant--until now.
"As we continue the process, we'll have a more native South Carolina eco-system here than the industrial forest that once dominated this property," she said.
Since the fires, crews have worked extensively to clean up the more than 7,000 acres of burned forest inside the preserve, and the land has been closed to the public.
Ruth said the preserve should re-open to the public by the middle of September.
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