BEARS, TRAPS AND BUNKERS

Pot Growers Go to Great Lengths to Protect Their Production

The recent discovery of several wild bears near a marijuana
grow-operation in B.C. 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 on Thursday could 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 coordinator of the RCMP's marijuana-enforcement program.

Investigators, he said, have come across trip wires rigged to fire
rifles or shot guns, even door knobs 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 you 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 also will 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, last year, RCMP discovered an underground bunker with
more than 11,000 pot plants. A Quonset hut was built atop the bunker
to give "the illusion of a legitimate out building on the property,"
police said.

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

And in Surrey, last year, police discovered a residential basement
grow-op located behind an industrial-quality door. The door was
hidden behind a bookshelf that opened partly 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 up
in the Christina Lake area 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.