Rat Poison Used by Marijuana Growers Endangering Rare Carnivore

The fischer - a rare carnivore. Photo courtesy: U.S. Forest Service/Public Domain

According to a recent study by veterinary scientists at the University of California, Davis, rat poison used by marijuana growers California (and probably elsewhere) is killing the fisher, a rather rare forest carnivore. The researchers have found rodenticide in fisher carcasses all around the state, including in and near national parks.

"Our findings were very surprising since non-target poisoning from these chemicals is typically seen in wildlife in urban or agricultural settings," said lead author Mourad Gabriel, a UC Davis Veterinary Genetics Laboratory researcher and president of the Integral Ecology Research Center.

"In California, fishers inhabit mature forests within the national forest, national parks, private industrial and tribal community lands nowhere near urban or agricultural areas," explained Gabriel.

Photo courtesy: Flickr

Fishers are likely to be exposed to the rat poison when they eat animals that have ingested it. Fishers also may consume rodenticides directly, drawn by the bacon, cheese and peanut butter flavors that manufacturers add to the poisons to attract animals.

The anticoagulant rodenticides harm the fishers by compromising their blood clotting and recovery abilities and decreasing their resilience to environmental stressors.

A member of the weasel family, the fisher, Martes pennanti, has been declared a candidate species for listing under the federal Endangered Species Act in California, Oregon and Washington.

Other carnivorous species, including martens, spotted owls, and Sierra Nevada red foxes, also may be at risk from the poison.

Is this yet another argument in favor of legalizing marijuana? Maybe. Personally, I am in favour of legalizing marijuana for many reasons; but, this type of thing is not the least of them. If people were allowed to grow their own marijuana legally, this type of devastation to the environment would not happen. And; let's not forget, that these poisons will find their way into the groundwater system given time.

But the facts remain that, at this point in time, growing marijuana is illegal unless you are a certified medicinal grower. So, in an effort to remain undetected, growers are cultivating their illegal crop in and near national parks. The hope is that the dense foliage of a natural park will cover what they are doing.

This causes lots of poison to be indiscriminately spread around those areas; harming wildlife, poisoning the water system, leaching into the soil, changing the ecosystem; and, causing untold (and perhaps irreversible) damage. We must also be aware of the potential harm this practise could cause to humans and companion animals that make use of the national parks.

2700 year-old Cannabis Found in old Chinese Tomb

This is the actual cannabis found in the tomb. It is undergoing testing to determine how many of its properties remain. Photo courtesy: grabi

Researchers say they have located the world's oldest stash of marijuana, in a tomb in a remote part of China. The cache of cannabis is about 2,700 years old and was clearly ``cultivated for psychoactive purposes," rather than as fibre for clothing or as food, says a research paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany. The 789 grams of dried cannabis was buried alongside a light-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian man, likely a shaman of the Gushi culture, near Turpan in northwestern China.

Photo courtesy: grabi

The extremely dry conditions and alkaline soil acted as preservatives, allowing a team of scientists to carefully analyze the stash, which still looked green though it had lost its distinctive odour.

"To our knowledge, these investigations provide the oldest documentation of cannabis as a pharmacologically active agent," says the newly published paper, whose lead author was American neurologist Dr. Ethan B. Russo.

Remnants of cannabis have been found in ancient Egypt and other sites, and the substance has been referred to by authors such as the Greek historian Herodotus. But the tomb stash is the oldest so far that could be thoroughly tested for its properties.

The 18 researchers, most of them based in China, subjected the cannabis to a battery of tests, including carbon dating and genetic analysis. Scientists also tried to germinate 100 of the seeds found in the cache, without success.

The marijuana was found to have a relatively high content of THC, the main active ingredient in cannabis, but the sample was too old to determine a precise percentage.

Researchers also could not determine whether the cannabis was smoked or ingested, as there were no pipes or other clues in the tomb of the shaman, who was about 45 years old.

The large cache was contained in a leather basket and in a wooden bowl, and was likely meant to be used by the shaman in the afterlife.

"This materially is unequivocally cannabis, and no material has previously had this degree of analysis possible," Russo said in an interview from Missoula, Mont.

"It was common practice in burials to provide materials needed for the afterlife. No hemp or seeds were provided for fabric or food. Rather, cannabis as medicine or for visionary purposes was supplied."

Via grabi