Recent reports say that fishers, an animal species similar to the weasel, are in danger of extinction due mainly to rat poisons used in protecting marijuana farms.

The fisher (Martes pennanti) is a weasel native to North America. It's also known as the fisher cat.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed a plan to protect these creatures already on the endangered species list and protected by the Endangered Species Act in California, Oregon and Washington. A final decision will be expected no later than September 3, 2015.

Like Us on Facebook

A proposal asks fishers should be under conservation laws because they're in danger of natural habitat loss due to disease, illegal hunting, wildfire, logging, climate change and urban development. The immediate danger to fishers, however, is they eat rat poisons used to protect marijuana farms.

According to Robyn Thorson, director of the FWS' Pacific Region, protecting fishers is a difficult challenge since threats to the animal come from varying factors. Rat poison, however, is still the main threat to these mammals that belong to the family tree of weasels, mink and otters.

An FWS report said rodenticides or rat poisons are commonly used in illegal marijuana cultivation areas. These marijuana farms overlap the fisher's natural habitat on public, private and even tribal lands in California.

FWS is observing and studying how exposure to rodenticides greatly affects fisher populations, especially those in Klamath Mountains, Southern Sierra Nevada and Olympic National Park in Washington.

FWS said about 84 percent of the 77 fisher carcasses discovered in California's southern Sierra Nevada Mountains yielded positive results for rat poison despite the use of rat poison being regulated by law.

Unfortunately, all fisher habitats overlap with illegal marijuana farms. Not only do they ingest rat poison but fishers also eat prey that has eaten rat poison. Marijuana plants can be equally fatal to fishers, as well.

To date, there are less than an 4,000 fishers in the U.S.

TagsFishers at Risk of Being an Endangered Species Due to Marijuana Farms, fishers, US, US endangered species, endangered species, fishers weasels otters endangered pot farms marijuana, marijuana farms, pot farms, Oregon, california