DAVIS, California, July 16, 2012 (ENS) - Rat poison used on illegal marijuana farms is sickening and killing the fisher, a rare forest carnivore that inhabits some of the most remote areas of California, finds a team of researchers led by veterinary scientists at the University of California, Davis.
Researchers discovered commercial rodenticide in dead fishers in two widely separated locations - Humboldt County near Redwood National Park on the California coast and also in fishers more than hundreds of miles away in central California's Sierra Nevada mountains in and around Yosemite National Park.
Distribution of the poisoned fishers indicated widespread contamination of fisher range in California, the researchers concluded.
The study, published July 13 in the journal "PLoS ONE," says illegal marijuana farms are a likely source of the rodenticides. Some marijuana growers apply the poisons to deter a wide range of animals from encroaching on their crops.
The study also involved researchers from UC Berkeley, the U.S. Forest Service, the California Department of Fish and Game, the nonprofits Integral Ecology Research Center and Wildlife Conservation Society, and Hoopa Tribal Forestry.
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Fisher captured for examination (Photo by Michael Schwartz, U.S. Forest Service) |
