Mortality Signal

First Light Productions

In the spring of 2012, a mortality signal on the radio collar of a Pacific fisher sent Hoopa tribal biologists scrambling to recover the animal quickly so a necropsy could be performed to determine cause of death. The field crew found the animal wasn’t dead but lethargic and lacking coordination, lurching on the ground attempting to seek cover from the approaching biologists. Beyond help the animal was humanely euthanized.

It was the sixth monitored fisher in California to die from rodent poison since 2009.

Necropsies and toxicological screenings of 58 fishers recovered on community and public lands in northern California revealed that nearly 80 percent of the animals had been exposed to rodenticide poisons.

Researchers suspected the poisonings were linked to marijuana grow sites hidden in the forest as the necropsied animals were not found near agricultural and urban areas where these types of pesticides are legally used to control…

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