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Cartel-poisoned, porcupine-eating mammal next on endangered list?
A shy, stubby-legged creature known as the Pacific fisher, which lived along the Pacific coast for thousands of years but was nearly wiped out by hunting and loss of habitat, is now threatened by cannabis cultivators.
Drug cartels and others have increasingly been setting up huge, illegal marijuana farms in public forests and spreading deadly rodenticides to kill pests that might ruin their plants, and the furtive fishers have been hit hard.
This week, the weasel-like mammal was proposed for listing under the Endangered Species Act, giving conservationists hope that the rare and elusive predator can be returned to the forests of California, Oregon and Washington.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will spend the next year taking public comment and gathering information on the Pacific fisher, which dines on porcupine and lives in old-growth forests.
--- Snip ---
Drug cartels and others have increasingly been setting up huge, illegal marijuana farms in public forests and spreading deadly rodenticides to kill pests that might ruin their plants, and the furtive fishers have been hit hard.
This week, the weasel-like mammal was proposed for listing under the Endangered Species Act, giving conservationists hope that the rare and elusive predator can be returned to the forests of California, Oregon and Washington.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will spend the next year taking public comment and gathering information on the Pacific fisher, which dines on porcupine and lives in old-growth forests.
--- Snip ---
http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Cartel-poisoned-porcupine-eating-mammal-next-on-5810383.php
This makes me sad; I've only seen one fisher in my backpacking life, and I've always wanted to see another. Please, know your growers, and don't buy from forest-destroying mass-producers!
(And tangentially, am I the only person who had no clue at all that porcupines lived in CA?
)
8 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
lived in CA.
What I want to know is how does anything eat a prickly porcupine?
i.e. the growing area centered in Humboldt County. If the cats had enough rats to hunt, maybe they wouldn't go after birds. And I haven't heard of an endangered bird species in Humboldt, which seems to be where the fisher is headed. Oh yes, that would give anti-pot forces a huge new tool to shut down growing. 
