Teaming up with local government authorities, the Tatra National Park has launched its annual public awareness campaign—imaginatively called Hocus Crocus—to educate tourists about the need to protect these eye-pleasing but extremely delicate purple flowers.
Every spring, the Tatra National Park’s extensive carpets of crocuses attract thousands of tourists, according to park officials.
The park’s Chochołowska Valley alone hosts up to 6,000 visitors a day when crocuses are in full bloom in spring, according to reports.
Despite patrols by park officials and volunteers, in previous years, some tourists were not careful around the flowers, damaging them with their blankets or even cars and trampling on them while taking selfies to share on social media, Poland’s PAP news agency has reported.
Some even barbecued in the middle of the blossoming vegetation, according to park officials.
Crocuses are particularly plentiful in the park’s mountainous terrain and on its high-lying meadows where sheep graze.
The variety of the crocus growing in the Tatra National Park, known as Crocus scepusiensis, is protected under Polish law.
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Source: IAR, PAP