Illegal cannabis grow sites in Northern California are destroying the ecosystem

It may be “just” a plant, but cannabis grow sites in the forests of Northern California are an insidious and increasing threat from which the local environment might never recover.

National Geographic has published a devastating report on the illegal grow sites in the Sunshine State that are threatening to destroy local ecosystems through the use of the “banned and highly toxic” pesticides often employed by illicit cannabis growers.

The grows are particularly common in a region known as the Emerald Triangle in Northern California that includes Mendocino, Trinity and Humboldt counties and comprises part of the Shasta-Trinity National Forest.

Officials say the number of plants removed by the Forest Service in Trinity County last year added up to over a million, versus 19 years ago when it was just over 1,000–and the consequences to wildlife have been devastating.

Ecologists Greta Wengert and Mourad Gabriel claim that threatened species such as the northern spotted owl have been killed by rat poison spread around grow sites, in addition to bobcats, foxes, mountain lions, fishers, bears, vultures, and even the scientists’ black Labrador retriever, Nyxo.

Wengert and Gabriel authored a study 2012 in about and another in 2018 about the disturbing levels of wildlife necropsies that test positive for high levels of toxic pesticides.

Destruction from illegal grows has also been creeping onto Indigenous lands. The Hoopa Valley Tribe, who reside within the Emerald Triangle, have struggled to keep cannabis growers off their reservation, where their water and some food sources risk being contaminated by runoff from the sites.

Although Forestry officials and scientists are working to eradicate the grows, once they’re located it may be too late. Even once cleared by professionals -if resources are even available- the sites are “almost never restored to how the forests once were.”

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