Morning Star Conservancy

Joey Santore is a botanist, artist, science communicator, author and YouTube educator who has produced over 400 episodes on plant ecology and evolution featuring plant species from all over the world for the YouTube channel Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't. In his videos, Santore travels internationally to habitats in order to film the ecologies of the plants that grow there. He moved to South Texas in 2020 and two years later formed Thornscrub Sanctuary, an organization dedicated to land conservation for the unique habitat of the South Texas Borderlands known as Tamaulipan Thornscrub. Thornscrub Sanctuary is purchasing a parcel of land to restore native habitat and propagate threatened species. The goals of this project are to both to conserve and propagate rare native plants for reintroduction into habitat as well as to serve as a research station to host school groups and visiting researchers. Santore has been featured in numerous articles, interviews and publications for his photography, video and documentation of rare plants and plant habitat