By Kevin Reagan | Casa Grande Dispatch
It is known as “saguaro poaching” and usually occurs in Arizona mostly during housing booms.
That is how state and Pinal County land management officials characterize the problem of thieves stealing the protected cactus, whose blossom is Arizona’s state flower.
The Arizona Native Plant Law protects saguaros and other native plant species, and getting a label and permit from the Arizona Department of Agriculture is the only way to legally move a saguaro unless a landowner moves the plant within his or her property.
Thieves find a market for the poached saguaros through nurseries in and out of state and shady landscape contractors.
