Mourad Gabriel, an ecologist with the Integral Ecology Research Center and UC Davis—and one of RATS’ scientific advisory board members—has hiked for hours into remote forests in Humboldt County to look for illegal use of rat poison by large “trespass” marijuana grows. Sometimes the sites are so remote he is flown in by helicopter and dropped to the ground from a line. For the past three years, Mourad has been studying the impacts of rat poison on the rare Pacific fisher and other wildlife in northern California forests. But his research has taken on a dangerous turn.
Trespass grow sites on federal forest land are often patrolled by armed guards, so Mourad and his colleagues can go out only when accompanied by law enforcement. In July, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office, the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, and the US Forest Service confiscated 3,760 marijuana plants. Accompanying these teams, a Hoopa Tribe wildlife ecologist, Mourad, and his colleagues discovered and removed 24 pounds of rodenticides from this remote site near the South Fork of the Trinity River. They also found that the freshwater springs on the site, which feed into the river—home to Coho salmon, Chinook salmon, steelhead, and other struggling fish species—had been diverted to water the pot plants.
Despite state and federal restrictions on rat poison use, 15 of the 24 pounds of rat poison were second generation anticoagulants (the kind that was just banned for California consumer use), and nine pounds were diphacinone, a first generation anticoagulant that is causing serious illness (and death) in mountain lions, bobcats, and other wildlife in southern California. Although the state and the US EPA continue to allow diphacinone and other first generation anticoagulants to be sold over-the-counter, these products have also been implicated in the deaths of great horned owls, barn owls, kestrels, and kit foxes.
Mourad’s team hiked out of the remote forest for three hours, carrying the poison in special containers in backpacks. Their goal is to document all of the impacts from the trespass grow sites and remove as much poison as they can; they will later go back with volunteers, including community watershed groups, to clean up the sites and then monitor to see if wildlife rebound and return.
“It’s definitely scary out there; there’s certainly an elevated risk, but it needs to be done,” says Mourad. “Removing these toxic threats from our ecosystems is essential in keeping the food web pristine, thus conserving many species.”
