Illegal alien invasion impacts wildlife, hunters

By now, unless you have been living in a cave, you have heard the discussion about the passage of the controversial immigration bill, SB 1070, which in reality is only what the federal government is supposed to be doing - protect our borders.

One of the things that we as sportsmen should look at is the impact on wildlife and outdoor recreation, including hunting, that is affected by the constant flow of illegal aliens into Arizona.

I, for one, have quit even applying for any big-game tags down south, as I have no desire to deal with illegal aliens and human smugglers sneaking into the country. Then there are the drug smugglers. Those folks are well armed most of the time, and as we have seen recently, they have no qualms about shooting anyone including ranchers and law enforcement officers who try and interrupt their illicit business.

This isn't a new problem. It's been going on for some time now and has caused some real problems for wildlife and sportsmen.

A few years ago, I had a client from northern California who drew a HAM (Handgun-Archery-Muzzleloader) javelina tag in Unit 36C, which is located in southern Arizona.

One of my guides took him out, and on the first day of the hunt while glassing from the top of a hill, they spotted a herd of pigs running out of a nearby wash. Why were they running? It seems a small group of illegals were trying to avoid detection and so they were staying tight to the wash and spooked the herd.

Next morning, the hunter and his guide were sitting on the same mountain top glassing.

This time at daylight, the guide spotted another group of subjects, but these seven guys were dressed in camos, with five of them carrying huge backpacks. The guy in the front had what appeared to be an AR-type rifle, while the guy in the back was toting an AK-47.

At that point, the hunter said to the guide in no uncertain terms, "I'm out of here!" Seemed he was carrying a .44 magnum handgun but was a little spooked about running into these heavily armed hombres. They went back to camp and the client loaded up and went home, his javelina hunt over.

Then there were the Kingman deer hunters that had drawn premium late December Coues deer tags in a unit that borders Mexico.

After two days of watching illegals being chased by Border Patrol helicopters and ground crews, plus seeing flashlights all around the camp at night, these guys gave up and came home.

Besides displacing wildlife from the historical places where they live, the illegals and drug smugglers also bring in tons and tons of trash, which they leave in the desert.

Drop sites all over Arizona have produced thousands of pounds of discarded clothes, water bottles, backpacks, food and other items.

It has gotten so bad that one group of Southern Arizona sportsmen do annual cleanups of the major drop sites.

And don't just think these desert drop offs happen only in Southern Arizona. A few years ago, Page McDonald and I volunteered to attend a cleanup in the desert just off the main highway north of Lake Pleasant. The site was close to Wickenburg and we wanted to see first-hand what was being dumped in the desert.

Folks running that cleanup said the illegals responsible for the trash we found were most likely headed either north to Las Vegas or west to California. That means of course that many of them come right through Kingman and Mohave County.

That day, the volunteers picked up an incredible amount of trash, filling up a number of Dumpsters that had been brought out to the site by the Bureau of Land Management.

Now, before you start sending me "fan mail" suggesting I'm some kind of racist, let me say here and now I'm not against legal immigration, but I am sure against this unchecked illegal immigration!

I could go on and on about the social costs of all of this, but I won't. This article is about the damage done to our desert, wildlife and sportsmen as a result of all of this illegal activity.

Did you know that it has got so bad that BLM has put up signs warning visitors about these dangers when visiting some parts of Southern Arizona?

The Arizona Game and Fish Commission passed a rule that now allows archers to carry handguns on their archery hunts.

Why? For protection against illegal aliens, drug and human smugglers mainly in Southern Arizona. Nothing like running into some bad guys when all you have is a sharp-pointed stick, right?

We as citizens and sportsmen in Arizona ought to be outraged at what is going on in our state.

Folks back east and even in neighboring California don't have any idea of the resource damage being done by this invasion of illegals.

But the problem is real in Arizona, and it is ongoing day and night. Should we just turn our heads and say it's no big deal?

Well over 70 percent of Arizonans think it is a big deal, and sportsmen don't make up that much of the population, so it is more than just a handful of angry sportsmen that are fed up with all of this.

It is obvious that the current federal administration isn't going to do much to stop or even slow this problem, even though under the Constitution it is their responsibility.

Nope, we better step up and keep the pressure on our state politicians to try and slow down this invasion.

The state's wildlife needs to be helped. Unfortunately, wildlife has only sportsmen - the state's only true conservationists - to try and protect them.

“Folks back east and even in neighboring California don’t have any idea of the resource damage being done by this invasion of illegals.”

Oh, yes we do!! Sadly!

The Pacific NW is run over will armed illegal alien Mexican cartels. The habitat is being destroyed on public and private forest lands. The cartels are fighting each other for ‘territory’.

See the article below with photos, stories of this invasion..ALL over the nation.

Alien Mexican Cartels occupy land all over the USA!

Yes, we know Arizona has land that has been given up to Mexico and it’s Narcoterrorists, but it’s not just along the border. It’s true. Search just about any state and you’ll find the story.

Many refuse to believe it, at the peril of all of us.
Private property rights??? Forget about it! Public property protected??? LOL!

Utah
Another Marijuana Farm Seized by Southern Utah Law Enorcement ...
KCSG - - 4 hours ago
(St. George, UT) – A 40-member law enforcement team seized over 3000 plants in another Marijuana growing farm near Central, Utah in ...Thursday’s raid is the sixth this year in Washington County, Moss said. Last year, there were two.

California

For years TheTownCrier has been reporting the hundreds of thousands of acres of habitat that is destroyed, without a word from ‘enviro friendly’ non profits and misguided, corrupt politicians. Last year, in the LaBrea Fire, 88,000 acres were burned down by the same illegal alien narcoterrorists.
This today:
Man fatally shot by deputies during pot raid was armed with pellet gun
[snip]Scouting deep within the steep, wooded wilderness of the sprawling N3 Cattle Ranch on July 21, three deputies shot Jose Penaloza-Soto, a landscaper from East Palo Alto. Deputies reported that the camouflaged 28-year-old did not drop his weapon when they spotted him and called out orders in both English and Spanish. In fact, he seemed to be aiming what clearly looked like a hunting rifle at a group of Alameda County sheriff’s deputies who were also on the raid. As officers advanced on the wounded man, he suddenly reached out to grab the dropped weapon and was shot once more, according to officials.

When they finally got to him, lying on a hillside of loose scree not far from an 18,000-plant illegal marijuana garden, Penaloza-Soto was dead.

Deputies estimate that there was about $60 million of marijuana ready for harvest within two well-hidden gardens nearby. Other suspects at the scene ran, deputies believe. Deputies heard them crashing away through the underbrush during the shooting. They have not been found.

The dead man’s family declined to be interviewed. But sheriffs reported that he was a Mexican national, here for slightly longer than a decade. He had worked for years with no criminal problems as a landscaper in the San Francisco area. Recently, his family reported, he had grown quiet and distant.
Marin Marijuana Farm Crackdown Nets $20 Million Of Pot
August 20, 2010
[snip]Sgt. Debra Barry said the plants, between 2 and 5 feet high, were spread over approximately 100 acres in the ridgelines and canyons surrounding Kent Lake in the Mount Tamalpais watershed. Dangerous chemicals, including rat poison, fertilizers and insecticides that pose significant dangers to pets and wildlife, public land and the water supply, were found at three clandestine grow sites, Barry said. The illegal cultivators also diverted water from natural springs, creating further danger to fish and wildlife. The growers also set up “improvised diversionary devices” used to disguise trails and injure people, Barry said. The growers’ encampments had tents, food, showering areas, camouflage clothing, personal items, and ammunition for .45-caliber handguns.

Madera County - $135 million worth of marijuana - that’s what drug agents found growing on private property in Madera County Wednesday. It is a record find for that county.

The grow was in a corn field, near Road 21 and Avenue 19.

It is a continuing problem across the Valley - Mexican drug cartels growing marijuana on acres of private property, and the land owners have no clue about it.

20-year-old Alejandro Castellanos, and 21-year-old Carlos Bailon-Martinez, both from Oaxaca, Mexico, were arrested.

They now face felony drug and weapons charges and are in the custody of immigration officials.

Wisconsin

‘Marijuana Megafarm’ Hidden In Wisconsin National ForestAug 12, 2010
(snip)Investigators say a band of Hispanic men turned the forest’s southeastern tip into a giant pot farm, growing thousands of plants on remote plots, moving supplies along forgotten logging roads and buying supplies and ammunition at local stores.

Federal, state and local police spent June and July tailing suspected growers, following pickup trucks down abandoned logging roads and watching Hispanic men appear in the trees and toss nylon sacks resembling grain feed bags into the beds.

They followed one suspect to a Fleet Farm in Green Bay, where he purchased six pairs of pruning shears. They watched another man purchase 9 mm ammunition at a nearby Wal-Mart, documents said.

In Wisconsin, the number of seized plants in grew six-fold between 2003 and 2008, a year when more than 32,000 plants were seized

Drug investigators believe Mexican cartels are largely responsible for the spike. Growing the drug here helps them get it to major American markets more quickly. They often import unskilled laborers from Mexico to help find the best land and tend their crops.

Cartel grow recruiters often look for people with family in Mexico so they can use them as leverage to keep the farmers working and quiet. If anyone betrays the farm, they go after the worker’s family, intelligence experts say.

Texas
Officials say Mexican cartels growing more pot in Texas |
Jul 15, 2010 ... It’s still early in the growing season, but the Ellis County Sheriff’s Department has already unearthed nearly 30000 high-grade marijuana ...Link
Mexican cartel farmers believed to be back growing marijuana in North Texas
(snip)”If these cartels are involved, that’s something for landowners to be concerned about. That’s some mean people down there, and there’s a lot of money at stake.”

Washington

Two arrested in alleged pot-growing operation
(snip)One of two alleged marijuana growers captured by police late Tuesday night was armed with a loaded rifle when caught tending about 1,300 plants hidden in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, police say. ( Manuel C. Granados, 51, and Jose G. Perez, 36,)
In a similar case in Oregon on Wednesday morning, Jackson County Sheriff’s Office deputies shot and killed an armed man in a raid of an alleged Mexican cartel’s outdoor marijuana growing operation, according to a bulletin from the Oregon State Police.
Officials said Wednesday evening they didn’t yet know whether the suspects are in the U.S. legally. Perez also was being held for arrest warrants, issued in other areas, charging DUI and negligent driving.
Police say illegal pot farms causing potential harm to environment
(snip)There’s no regard for the environment or maintaining public lands,” said Special Agent Sue Thomas. “There’s a lot of trash, a lot of garbage, fertilizer, chemicals. It’s a hazard to the environment, a hazard to hikers.”

Oregon
A public menace
[snip]Illegal marijuana plantations on government lands are expanding, putting forest users at risk, say Southern Oregon law officers.

Unlike domestic pot operations of years past, many of the plantations now growing on federal land are operated by Mexican drug-trafficking organizations who are well-financed and well-armed, the sheriffs said.

“The longer it goes on, the harder it will be for us to overcome,” Winters told Walden. “They are better funded than us ... There are more of them than there are of us.”

A separate 2008 NDIC report on cartel-related drug-trafficking organizations said the Federation cartel was active in Klamath Falls, and undetermined cartels were working in Medford and Roseburg.

The Justice Department’s 2010 national drug threat assessment concluded the operations “constitute the greatest drug-trafficking threat” to the nation.

http://towncriernews.blogspot.com/2010/08/alien-mexican-cartels-occupy-land-all.html

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.