GROW-OPS A PLACE WHERE PARANOIA GROWS LIKE WEED

From bears and crocodiles to booby traps and hidden staircases,
there's no end to the lengths growers will go to hide their illicit
operations, Douglas Quan reports.

The recent discovery of several wild bears near a marijuana
grow-operation in British Columbia is just one of many examples of
the extraordinary lengths people will sometimes go to protect their
pot, police across the country say.

While no one can recall another instance involving bears, there was a
case several years ago involving a crocodile. In 2003, drug officers
raided a home in Scarborough, Ont., and found 164 plants growing
around a concrete-lined oval pond in the basement.

It turned out a two-metre-long croc was swimming in the pond's murky water.

Police discovered tanks of fish and six cages of rats -- apparently
food for the scaly reptile.

Pot-farm caretakers not inclined to use wild animals or armed guards
have been known to devise elaborate booby traps designed to thwart
police and ward off pot-plant thieves.

"Some of these setups are done to a professional level," said Sgt.
Chan Dara, national co-ordinator of the RCMP's marijuana-enforcement program.

Investigators, he said, have come across trip wires rigged to fire
rifles or shotguns, and even doorknobs designed to give intruders an
electric jolt.

Det. Sgt. Mark Dennis of the Ontario Provincial Police
drug-enforcement unit said some outdoor grow-operations are
surrounded by fishing lines with sharp hooks designed to catch
trespassers in the face or wooden boards on the ground with nails
protruding from them.

Just last year, an officer got caught in a bear trap. While he wasn't
seriously hurt, he had to be carried away by fellow officers, Dennis said.

Criminals will also go to great lengths to conceal their grow-ops.

Dennis said investigators once discovered a grow-op located
underneath the detached garage of a residence. The entrance to the
basement was concealed by a fake staircase that lifted up
hydraulically with the flip of a toggle switch.

In Chilliwack, B.C., last year, RCMP discovered an underground bunker
with more than 11,000 pot plants. A Quonset hut was built atop it to
give "the illusion of a legitimate out building on the property," police said.

The bunker was also equipped with booby traps rigged to shoot bear spray.

And in Surrey, B.C., last year, police discovered a residential
basement grow-op located behind an industrial-quality door. The door
was hidden behind a bookshelf that opened partially on a hinge "much
like one typically associated with an old English manor house," police said.

But none of these cases has garnered as much attention as the case of
the pot-protecting bears. RCMP announced this week that officers
dismantling an outdoor grow op in the Christina Lake area of B.C.
were confronted by 10 docile black bears.

Police said it appeared to them that residents had fed the bears to
encourage them to keep coming back to the property to essentially
serve as guards for the plants.

"Absurd and surreal," RCMP Cpl. Dan Moskaluk said Thursday.