And those environmental crimes are having deadly effects on nearly-endangered species, like the Pacific Fisher.
Scientists at the California Animal Health and Food Safety Lab at UC Davis have made a life’s work of tracking the six-to-eight pound weasel-like mammal as it inches toward extinction. There are only 300 left in California.
Daly City Man Claims 500 Pot Plants Were For "Personal Use"
“These are rare and elusive animals,” said Mourad Gabriel, a scientist at UC Davis. Gabriel has micro-chipped and tracked fishers, studying the causes of mortality since 2007 in order to determine if the species should be on the endangered species list.
Gabriel’s most recent research has found 86 percent of Fishers he’s studying on and around Yosemite National Park, Sierra National Forest, and the Hoopa Valley Reservation near Eureka have been exposed to a poison called second generation anticoagulant rodenticide (SGAR) in their habitats. Toxicology reports show six have died from consuming it.
To view a map of where the fishers were exposed, click here.
The only possible location of the poison is in the animals’ habitats: on illegal marijuana grow sites on tribal and public lands, like national parks.
All the deaths occurred between April and June, which is prime time for marijuana planting in California, when growers are concerned with protecting younger plants from animals.
“What we know is there is a massive use of toxicants out there,” Gabriel said.
The SGAR pesticides are so acutely poisonous, according to Gabriel, that a quarter teaspoon can kill a 500 pound lion. He’s seen pot farmers use up to 50 times that amount on a single plant to keep animals away from their crops.
“These have been specifically banned for a wide array of reasons, but one of them is the malicious poisoning that we’re seeing out there for our wildlife,” Gabriel said.
According to the State Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR), it is illegal to use SGARs on agriculture. Their permissible uses are on and around buildings and by extermination companies, yet they are still readily available in stores and being used prevalently by marijuana growers.
Click here to view the allowable uses.
“It’s a direct poisoning with a restricted-use chemical,” Gabriel said. “It’s an illegal use of this toxicant and it’s not a logical use.”
The Department of Pesticide Regulation defines SGAR as more potent than first generation: It only takes one dose to kill an animal. They also last longer than first generation rodenticides, meaning an SGAR can live in an animal’s body for up to a year, as opposed to two days of a first generation.