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Wildlife the victim of growing Bay Area marijuana business
Tom Stienstra | SFGate.com | August 27, 2006

The helicopter hovered over the Coyote Creek Canyon at the south end of Henry Coe State Park. Inside, Mike Ferry, the park's supervising ranger, scanned the terrain below with binoculars, searching for groves of marijuana.

"This is where we found the big one, 8,000 plants in two groves," Ferry said. "At $5,000 a plant, that could be worth $40 million on the street. Take it to the East Coast, you double or triple the value."

Ferry, an affable man and wildlife expert, grimaced as he described raiding the illegal sites.

"At these gardens, we've found dead animals and birds, ammonia sulfate, pesticides and herbicides, ponds and creeks lined with plastics, and garbage all over the place," he said. "The environmental damage is huge."

The public has been warned about the potential danger of wandering into an illegal marijuana garden at parks and national forests. But it is fish, wildlife and habitat that are being butchered, Ferry said.

"They start killing them, birds, deer, whatever comes in," Ferry said. The outlaws kill them, he said, to keep wildlife from eating the crop.

Timing is now critical because illegal marijuana gardens are near harvest, which occurs in California from Labor Day weekend through early October.

Ferry runs Coe, California's largest state park, located south of Mount Hamilton and a favorite site for the illegal gardens. He also worked for CAMP (Campaign Against Marijuana Planting) for three months last year, so he has seen hundreds of operations up close and personal.

"We find ammo at every grove," Ferry said. "At one camp (at Coe State Park), we found a four-point rack, blacktail deer that they poached. At another camp, we found these two water lines, you know, black plastic pipe, coming out of a plastic-lined pond that ran two miles to the grove, and you know that creek has been damaged."

In the Bay Area, the favorite site of illegal growers seems to be Santa Clara County, in the vicinity of Mount Hamilton and Mount Umunhum. Two weeks ago, sheriff's deputies pulled 20,000 plants in five gardens, bringing this year's total to 70,000 plants confiscated worth roughly $280 million, according to their estimates.

So many illegal gardens are being located, such as 8,000 more plants found in Mendocino National Forest in Glenn County last week, that CAMP may surpass last year's record busts: 1.2 million plants worth more than $4.5 billion, according to agents.

About 90 percent of the illegal groves are on public lands, usually at parks, open space reserves and national forests, Ferry said. The hottest spot appears to be the west slopes of the Sierra Nevada east of Fresno. "We pulled gardens for five days a week, for three months, in Sequoia National Forest," Ferry said.

Hikers, bikers, 4-wheel-drivers, off-highway-vehicle riders, equestrians, anglers and hunters can wander into an operation or see evidence of one. One common episode is for anglers, fishing a remote stream, to spot a plastic pipe irrigation line. Another warning sign is to see a van, filthy from being driven on remote dirt roads, filled with workers -- if you see such a vehicle, take down the license number and report it.

"Just about all of it is being run by the Mexican drug cartel," Ferry said. "They recruit illegal immigrants in Mexico, bring them to safe houses in California, and give them $300 to get by. Then they run them into the hills and mountains, and if they go through the whole cycle through harvest, give them $3,000."

One dilemma "that is really throwing us," Ferry said, is the wide-scale acceptance of medical marijuana and the perception that casual marijuana use hurts nothing.

But if marijuana smokers saw the carcasses of deer, squirrels, songbirds, owls and other wildlife shot or poisoned at the illegal groves, as Ferry has, perhaps they would understand the price wildlife pays for their next toke.

"I don't know the answer, but I've seen the damage," he said. "Every day I go out, it doesn't surprise me to hear we have another bust."

E-mail Tom Stienstra at tstienstra@sfchronicle.com.

PS: The article continues from here, going into non-marijuana issues... at length.

 

reggie_the_dog

"Another warning sign is to see a van, filthy from being driven on remote dirt roads, filled with workers -- if you see such a vehicle, take down the license number and report it."


So next time you see a dirty van in a forest call the cops. Its not like families ever pile into their van, drive up a dirt road AND CAMP, HIKE, OR FISH.

Oh, I guess a van of workers would be a van of NON WHITES right...

So don't call the cops on the Smith family while they are on vacation, call the cops on the Hernandez family while they are on vacation....

Frankly I don't give a damn how much wildlife is killed by the growers, if cannabis was legal this would not be happening.

I grow my own in parkland too because I dont want to grow on someone's private property.

Buzzby

The Prohibitionist begat the the Illicit Weed.
The Illicit Weed begat the Illegal Demand.
The Illegal Demand begat the Black Market.
The Black Market begat the Astronomical Profits.
The Astronomical Profits begat the Profiteers.
The Profiteers begat Environmental Destruction.

And Lo, the Prohibitionist,
He knoweth not his Ass from a Hole in the Ground.
When seeking the source of Environmental Destruction
He needeth only to look in the Mirror.

__________________

Nugget Lover

"One dilemma "that is really throwing us," Ferry said, is the wide-scale acceptance of medical marijuana and the perception that casual marijuana use hurts nothing."

It doesn't hurt anyone, if it's legal. Also if users do have a higher rate of certain diseases let them face it rather, than innocent creatures and human being get caught in the middle, simply because of prohibition.

dredpiratrobert

This article really underscores the atrocities of illegal immigration and cartel activities, however, the facts are blurry at best and make the professionals look a little stupid:

"At $5,000 a plant, that could be worth $40 million on the street. Take it to the East Coast, you double or triple the value."

Good job Stedanko! You must've watched all the movies in "drug-school"!

Getting $5k for a plant is ludicrous-- damn near impossible. Consider a plant from a commercial grow would be worth considerably less than that. The figure should be more like $1-20M or $500-2500 per bush. I've never seen a pound of "commersh" that cost $5000... it just dosen't happen. Nobody is that dumb yet!

Granted, it is sad what outlaw growers do to the environment-- using inorganic ferts and pesticides not to mention hostile acts like poaching. Many growers choose to grow outside out of sheer necessity (talking 'bout non-commercial growers) and do so consiously with respect for the wildlife.

finally, to make a point; if growing a few plants were allowed legally then people could do it in ideal locations far from the nature reserves, state parks, and without disrupting local watersheds or polluting the water-table.

agree?

__________________
True Patriots Live Free Or Die Trying!!!

 

xxdr_zombiexx

it's the artifacts of prohibition that are blamed on the marijuana itself.

If the weed was legal, like it needs to be, we won't find many more such operations in the forest any more than we find moonshinin' still going on.

It's blatantly that simple, but here again the prohibitionist has the media access and the activist reformer howls in the dark, cut out of the media access.

And look over just the few comments on this thread - most people spending time disassembling the propaganda statements while the prohibitionist is off in search of new fields with his (or her) shiny helocopter and legion of cops and shovels.

And, as always, enforcing cannabis prohibition is FAR preferrable to real work.

__________________
Alien Space Signal

There's no money for your issue so long as we're squandering $50 billion a year on the DrugWar. Ben Masel

Fear became the ultimate tool of this government - V.