Spore wars: on the trail of the mushroom poachers
October 16, 2005 - telegraph.co.uk
As the dawn mist lifts, Roger Castle, 61, the monocled mounted keeper, sits in the saddle of Davos, his chestnut hunter, and scans the horizon.
"The horse will move silently through the grass," he murmurs. "They won't hear us coming." Bill Rowland, the senior keeper, following on foot with his dog Bisto, a German shepherd, gives the word and the patrol moves off into the gloom.
Their mission is to protect giant puffballs, slippery jacks, ceps and about 300 other species of fungi that grow on Wimbledon Common. Their quarries are the shadowy figures who, they claim, are a new breed of poacher - the mushroom rustlers of Wimbledon Common.
Once the preserve of dog-walkers, joggers and the occasional Womble, as the fungi autumn season reaches its height this weekend, the common has become the battleground for one of Britain's stranger fights for law and order. If you side with the "rustlers", you might call it a struggle to save yet another threatened rural tradition.
The Board of Conservators of Wimbledon and Putney Commons, the charitable organisation that runs the 1,150 acres of Wimbledon Common, Putney Heath and Putney Lower Common, has adopted a zero tolerance policy towards mushroom-picking. Pickers, or poachers, are to be hunted down, their fungi confiscated, and repeat offenders threatened with ?200 fines for breaching the bylaws of Wimbledon Common.
There was a time when most people thought there were just two types of fungi: mushrooms (white and sold on market stalls) and toadstools (poisonous things eaten by foreigners). But now, in the enlightened age of the celebrity chef, everyone has a wild mushroom recipe, and every restaurant needs its wild mushroom risotto.
Suddenly there are funds in fungi, and, arguably, ill-gotten gains too - ?2,000 a week according to some reports.
According to the Wimbledon Common keepers, dubious characters can be seen at dawn shouldering black binliners full of fungal "swag", which they sell to middlemen or direct to West End restaurants. The keepers are catching two or three "rustlers" a day.
So great is the menace that Gordon Vincent, the chief executive of the conservators, joins our patrol, decrying the "rape of the countryside" and suggesting that he might soon confront the restaurants themselves.
The rustlers are often penniless, east European immigrants who are recruited because they come from countries with mushroom-picking traditions and know how to avoid the likes of the fly agaric: beautiful, hallucinogenic and toxic. Against them stands the seven-strong team of rangers, mostly ex-Household Cavalry NCOs.
As befits his fondness for monocles, Mr Castle is a former Territorial Army major who "enjoyed" four years in Bosnia. "Compared to Bosnian warlords," he smiles, "these fungi pickers are a lot easier to handle. No guns."
The keepers rely on article 9 of a 1971 bylaw for the common: "No unauthorised person shall fell, take or sell any plant or natural product from the commons."
National law seems less helpful to them. English Nature, the Government's conservation adviser, concedes that picking fungi without uprooting them is "probably legal" under the Wildlife and Countryside Act.
Some, of course, insist the "poachers" are innocents, as harmless as blackberry pickers.
They stress the mushrooms that can be seen above ground are merely the spore-carrying, fruiting part of the fungus. The mycelium, the network of tiny tubes forming most of the fungus, remains safe underground. If the mushroom is picked properly, by cutting the stem, the mycelium will continue to produce mushrooms just as blackberry bushes keep bearing fruit.
"This is not poaching," said Antonio Carluccio, 68, the Italian restaurateur who introduced Britons to fungi 20 years ago, in his book A Passion for Mushrooms. "It's like picking chestnuts from under a tree, a wonderful activity for the whole family.
"By the time it is picked, the mushroom has already opened to spread its spores.
"The authorities are being heavy-handed. Maybe they are envious of people taking something for nothing from the woods. Maybe they lack a little knowledge." His restaurants used imported mushrooms, but he still loved picking for the pot, he said. He is horrified, however, by people who put mushrooms in plastic bags. "That is the worst thing one can do. The mushrooms are squashed, they sweat. Use a basket."
The patrol presses on, to Seven Post Pond Wood, where we spot a mushroom picker. Mr Rowland adopts his lance corporal's voice: "Are you taking fungi? Stand still!"
Vladystaw from Warsaw hardly appears to be a hardened rustler. The middle-aged, east European turns to see Mr Rowland, who with his green uniform and German shepherd, is reminiscent of a Communist border guard.
He trembles as the contents of his rucksack are examined to reveal one solitary cep mushroom.
"Caught in the act," smiles Mr Vincent, before frisking Vladystaw.
"No! Illegal. Understand," says Mr Rowland.
Vladystaw, who arrived in Britain five months ago, claims that he just wanted something to eat, didn't know it was wrong and wasn't going to sell his mushroom to a restaurant. He is still trembling when he is allowed to go (minus the cep).
Among the patrol, there is pity but also scepticism. "Guys like that aren't going to traipse their spoils around Fulham," says Mr Rowland. "There has to be a Mr Big organising them."
For now, though, fungi's Mr Big remains elusive. For the "rustlers", the keepers and the fungi, the game of hide and seek continues.
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