WILDLIFE THE VICTIM OF GROWING BAY AREA MARIJUANA BUSINESS

The helicopter hovered over the Coyote Creek Canyon at the south end
of Henry Coe State Park. Inside, Mike Ferry, the park's supervising
ranger, scanned the terrain below with binoculars, searching for
groves of marijuana.

"This is where we found the big one, 8,000 plants in two groves,"
Ferry said. "At $5,000 a plant, that could be worth $40 million on
the street. Take it to the East Coast, you double or triple the value."

Ferry, an affable man and wildlife expert, grimaced as he described
raiding the illegal sites.

"At these gardens, we've found dead animals and birds, ammonia
sulfate, pesticides and herbicides, ponds and creeks lined with
plastics, and garbage all over the place," he said. "The
environmental damage is huge."

The public has been warned about the potential danger of wandering
into an illegal marijuana garden at parks and national forests. But
it is fish, wildlife and habitat that are being butchered, Ferry said.

"They start killing them, birds, deer, whatever comes in," Ferry
said. The outlaws kill them, he said, to keep wildlife from eating the crop.

Timing is now critical because illegal marijuana gardens are near
harvest, which occurs in California from Labor Day weekend through
early October.

Ferry runs Coe, California's largest state park, located south of
Mount Hamilton and a favorite site for the illegal gardens. He also
worked for CAMP (Campaign Against Marijuana Planting) for three
months last year, so he has seen hundreds of operations up close and personal.

"We find ammo at every grove," Ferry said. "At one camp (at Coe State
Park), we found a four-point rack, blacktail deer that they poached.
At another camp, we found these two water lines, you know, black
plastic pipe, coming out of a plastic-lined pond that ran two miles
to the grove, and you know that creek has been damaged."

In the Bay Area, the favorite site of illegal growers seems to be
Santa Clara County, in the vicinity of Mount Hamilton and Mount
Umunhum. Two weeks ago, sheriff's deputies pulled 20,000 plants in
five gardens, bringing this year's total to 70,000 plants confiscated
worth roughly $280 million, according to their estimates.

So many illegal gardens are being located, such as 8,000 more plants
found in Mendocino National Forest in Glenn County last week, that
CAMP may surpass last year's record busts: 1.2 million plants worth
more than $4.5 billion, according to agents.

About 90 percent of the illegal groves are on public lands, usually
at parks, open space reserves and national forests, Ferry said. The
hottest spot appears to be the west slopes of the Sierra Nevada east
of Fresno. "We pulled gardens for five days a week, for three months,
in Sequoia National Forest," Ferry said.

Hikers, bikers, 4-wheel-drivers, off-highway-vehicle riders,
equestrians, anglers and hunters can wander into an operation or see
evidence of one. One common episode is for anglers, fishing a remote
stream, to spot a plastic pipe irrigation line. Another warning sign
is to see a van, filthy from being driven on remote dirt roads,
filled with workers -- if you see such a vehicle, take down the
license number and report it.

"Just about all of it is being run by the Mexican drug cartel," Ferry
said. "They recruit illegal immigrants in Mexico, bring them to safe
houses in California, and give them $300 to get by. Then they run
them into the hills and mountains, and if they go through the whole
cycle through harvest, give them $3,000."

One dilemma "that is really throwing us," Ferry said, is the
wide-scale acceptance of medical marijuana and the perception that
casual marijuana use hurts nothing.

But if marijuana smokers saw the carcasses of deer, squirrels,
songbirds, owls and other wildlife shot or poisoned at the illegal
groves, as Ferry has, perhaps they would understand the price
wildlife pays for their next toke.

"I don't know the answer, but I've seen the damage," he said. "Every
day I go out, it doesn't surprise me to hear we have another bust."