Pubdate: Thu, 15 May 2014
Source: Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
Copyright: 2014 Sun-Sentinel Company
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/mVLAxQfA
Website: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/159
Author: Julie Cart, Los Angeles Times
Page: 6A

WAS DOG'S POISONING A WARNING FROM ILLEGAL MARIJUANA GROWERS?

BLUE LAKE, Calif. - Super Bowl Sunday was a quiet day for wildlife
disease expert Mourad Gabriel. He and his wife, Greta Wengert, an
ecologist, planned to watch the game, then peel off to do some work.

Their house, on the crest of a wooded knoll near the Northern
California coastal town of Arcata, is open and sunlit. From the
kitchen table where Gabriel often works, he can see the sloping
backyard where the family's two boisterous Labrador retrievers loved
to play.

One of the dogs, Nyxo, was rescued from a local shelter. The dog
frequently kept the 39-year-old PhD company during his fieldwork,
which includes studying the decline of the Pacific fisher - a forest
predator, related to the weasel, that is a candidate for inclusion on
the federal endangered species list later this year.

After the football game, the couple turned in. The next morning, Greta
found Nyxo on the floor writhing in pain. Hours later, he was dead.

Gabriel drove the body to UC Davis to help perform a necropsy in a lab
where he often worked. Pathologists opened Nyxo's chest and found it
filled with blood - a clear indication that the dog had died from a
particularly nasty "super-toxic" rat poison that Gabriel and
colleagues had written about in 2012.

Their scientific paper had linked the toxin to the deaths of Pacific
fishers. The creatures had eaten rodents poisoned by illegal marijuana
growers across California, including those hidden in Humboldt County's
lushly forested mountains.

In a county whose economy is driven by the marijuana trade, the
findings made Gabriel a target. Comments on websites warned that
"snitches wind up in ditches."

Gabriel reported his dog's death to Humboldt County Sheriff Mike
Downey. In the 13 weeks since, his department's investigation has
yielded no leads. Despite a $20,000 reward, his deputies have gotten
almost no cooperation from the public.

"We have an old-time saying in Humboldt County," Downey said. "'Our
hills contain a lot of things we don't know about.' " 80 percent the
region's violent crime is associated with marijuana, said Downey,
whose department as recently as 10 days ago arrested a grower for murder.

Authorities believe Nyxo's poisoning was meant as "a very clear
message" to Gabriel, Downey said. "It's reflective of an industry that
is unchecked and has no moral compass," he said. "There's no regard
for life."

Dangerous territory

Daniel T. Blumstein, chairman of UCLA's department of ecology and
evolutionary biology, said risk management is a fact of life for field
scientists. "There's a growing list of environmentalists and
researchers who have been killed by going public with something, going
back to Dian Fossey, saving gorillas in Rwanda," he said.

After Nyxo's death, anonymous commenters on local websites charged
that Gabriel had poisoned his own pet. They said he was a "stooge"
working for law enforcement.

His colleagues warned him to be careful. "Some friends and law
enforcement said, 'Hide and be quiet. Look what happened to your dog,'
" Gabriel said.

"Others said, 'Maybe you should let people know about what happened.'
This is scientific intimidation. If you are quiet, then they've
intimidated you."

Gabriel has cautiously chosen the latter course. He said he's not
trying to be reckless or brave, but he believes that when intimidation
has a chilling effect on science, science loses.

Tearing up at his kitchen table, he said he would continue his work
because he believes the public and wild creatures have a right to be
safe in nature.

Still, he takes precautions. Gabriel's home now has professionally
installed motion detectors and surveillance cameras. His laboratory
also is rigged with alarms. Two Sundays ago, a lab alarm went off at 5
a.m.

Someone had broken into the back door. Nothing was taken, Gabriel
said, but a desk drawer had been opened.

A neighbor told Gabriel he rushed out after the alarm sounded and saw
a tall man in black clothes quickly exit the building.

The man got into an SUV with tinted windows and drove off.
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