Pot farmers’ pesticides poisoning forest animals
By David Perlman, San Francisco Chronicle
Fishers, those rare little forest animals barely larger than a big house cat, are dying from rat poisons left behind by illegal marijuana growers in California who abandon their plantations when the law closes in.
Ecologist Mourad Gabriel should know: He lives in Blue Lake, a Humboldt County town not far from the area’s fast-moving hidden pot farmers. Nyxo, his pet Labrador retriever, died of a powerful rat poison last year while Gabriel was investigating the unusual deaths among fishers.
Fishers, related to the weasel family, live in forests along the West Coast from Oregon to Yosemite and the southern Sierra and are already proposed for federal protection as a threatened species. Once abundant, their populations have been declining for years as civilization closes in on their habitats.
But now Gabriel, along with colleagues at UC Davis and the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation’s tribal forestry department, have found that a variety of poisons are killing some of the fishers, although their primary enemies are still predators.
DON’T BELIEVE THIS REEFER MADNESS PROPAGANDA!
These horrible consequences from illegal pot grows on public land would end tomorrow if weed were legal. Shame on those who continue to promote public policies that result in such terrible destruction for our precious ecosystem! How much more damage and suffering will we allow to continue in this morally reprehensible public policy disaster that puts people in cages for growing a plant.
Steve you make goods points but would pot being legal suddenly cause a person without an environmental conscience to get one? It’s been about 7 years since I came across a spot next to the river where someone was repeatedly disposing of pot grow soil. Whoever would do this is probably not concerned with the poisoning of the environment or the legality of their behavior.
And by the way, pot growers. You are not invisible.
Agreed, Isee…pesticides don’t magically disappear just because a law changes.
Some of these deadly toxins are brought in from the open borders with Mexico and they are ones that have been illegal for decades in the US. The cartel growers are the ones most of the time doing this and with open borders being left open this is but one of many serious crimes and consequences of non-enforcement of laws and a liberal allowed and ordered sanctuary state for criminals.
Justice…you seriously have a fixation with our Southern border, and anyone from there, legal or not. Please move to Imperial Beach with your weapons, start a well regulated militia and protect your sovereign rights.
Your spiel is as tiresome as Dog’s anti-gubmint shtik.
Beat me to the writing Steve…. Thanks !!
Hmmm, thanks for stating what most of us agree with. Paranoid justanass is old as stale bread…
Justn@ss. And Cocaine was transported via CIA, Oliver North, Casper Weinberger and Ronald Reagan… so what is your point with borders; north, south, east and west. Oh, you don’t have one… It is just your cut and paste reply to everything. Got it, you can resume your Meth induced paranoia now.
Isee, I to agree with your point about pot growers somehow finding an “environmental conscience.”
The usual brain dead liberals with their criminal encouraging sanctuary state open borders and an inability to offer a sober thought, only excuses and a weak attack with nothing in it. They are a symptom of what is going wrong in this country with so many issues that are impacting everyday US citizens and why elections are so important and why liberals are being defeated across the country in every election. With their candidate lawless Hill-the-Beast showing how lying and dishonesty are the way, they follow like sheep. The liberals are her and she is them.
Bla bla bla…
If you are playing the ‘every time Justass writes liberal(s)’ drinking game, that’s 4 drinks.
Most of the illegal grows on government land ARE done by illegal aliens. The economic impact on Northern California, Oregon and Washington is beyond belief. Government agencies should be concentrating ALL of their resources towards these criminals. They destroy wide areas of forest with poor farming techniques and kill wild animals. They divert water from rivers and streams causing huge problems further down the line. Arrest them, fingerprint them, explaine that the next time they are caught in this country they will be sentenced to ten years of labor working on infrastructure projects, and send them back across the border. The cartels will keep sending them back and we can use them to build the Wall you all seem to want.
Marijuana should be grown as naturally as possible and subjected to quality control standards.
Last year in Colorado, taxes on marijuana brought in over 70 MILLION dollars. Use alcohol tax as a barometer. It brought in around 50 million in the same period.
It really is time to end this silly prohibition on this plant.
CHEERS!