Pubdate: Thu, 26 Jul 2012
Source: Chico Enterprise-Record (CA)
Copyright: 2012 Chico Enterprise-Record
Contact:  http://www.chicoer.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/861

PUBLIC FORESTS BEING TRASHED

Little by little, people are realizing the environmental damage done
by squatters in our national forests.

Talk to people in more populated parts of California about what's
happening with marijuana plantations in our national forests, and they
just can't fathom it.

Tell them that squatters - mostly Mexicans working for cartels - set
up huge plantations, protect the plants with armed guards, kill deer
for food, contaminate streams with pesticides, kill animals with rat
poison to keep them from eating the pot, and then leave behind
mountains of trash when the harvest of done E and it seems
inexplicable.

People who don't realize the extent of the wide-open spaces in the
north state are incredulous. Why is this allowed?

Why aren't they arrested? Tell them that it's easy to get off the
beaten track and hide for months without being seen by anybody, and
they think you're joking.

They don't realize the extent of the planning that goes into such an
endeavor. They don't realize how the sites are carefully selected to
avoid detection. They don't believe that somebody can live for four or
five months in the forest without ever coming out to civilization.
They don't realize that the only way to have a chance to see the
well-placed growing spots is by air, and even then it's like finding a
needle in a bale of marijuana. They don't realize that if the growers
are caught, they say nothing. They'd rather go to prison than get
killed for talking to drug agents about the cartels behind it.

But slowly, the rest of the state is catching on to the shocking truth
that people in the rural north have known for years. It happens
through news reports of growers getting caught right around harvest
time, or the occasional gunfight between growers and authorities. And
it happens with the help of studies that are curious enough to receive
widespread coverage in the big-city press.

A UC Davis study released this month, picked up by many media outlets
statewide, showed that the efforts of wildlife biologists to
reintroduce fishers to the Sierra Nevada is being hampered by pot growers.

Pot growers use rat poison to keep rodents out of their crop. But the
study says that rat poison kills other mammals, including fishers, a
small mammal similar to a weasel that is a candidate for the federal
and state Endangered Species List.

UC Davis researchers studied 58 fisher carcasses and found that 46 had
been exposed to rat poison in national forests. None of the 40 animals
released near Stirling City were found dead, but dead animals were
found on national forests in such places as the North Coast redwoods
and near Yosemite.

So let's take stock. Now marijuana growers have offended and
threatened hikers, anglers, off-road vehicle users, hunters, law
enforcement and anybody who cares about water, fish and mammals.

It's long past time for a full-scale assault to reclaim our public
forests.
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MAP posted-by: Matt