California Drought - the Guadalupe River, which courses through San Jose, has dried up despite previous efforts to restore it.
Over the years, the river went through a number of revival processes and brought civic pride after it once again housed salmon, trout and beavers among many other wildlife.
Unfortunately, the incessant drought transformed wide areas of the Guadalupe into vast arid, cracked gray riverbed, rendering it uninhabitable again to water creatures, CBS San Francisco reported.
The fish and other wildlife creatures that had previously returned to their home are now dead and gone.
The Guadalupe River is just one of the many rivers and creeks in the state that have withered due to the relentless California drought believed to have been caused partly by marijuana.
With effects ranging from soil contamination, erosion, threats to wildlife and excessive water use in times of severe drought, ecologists and wildlife managers are prompted to focus more on the control and monitoring of marijuana plantations all over the state.
A 2014-published study revealed that poisons used to kill wood rats in black-market marijuana fields had caused the death of 80 percent Pacific fishers (weasel-like animals) living in the forests of northern California and southern Sierra Nevada, Business Insider has learned.
Furthermore, the growing unregulated marijuana plantations greatly affect water availability and quality since marijuana grown outdoors require twice the amount of water needed by other plants during growing season (June to October) when rain is basically scarce.
It is also during this time when surface water and wetlands are the easiest water source to tap and remote plantations draw water from wetlands and streams draining them in the process and adding to the number of dead water sources.
Meanwhile, despite of rivers running shallow in the state, summer vacation in California is not ruined by the drought, Russian River Adventures owner Larry Laba claimed.
Ryan Becker of Visit California also said tourism to California seems unaffected by the drought, with travel spending in the Golden State rising every year of the drought 3.6 percent in 2014 to $117.5 billion, according to San Jose Mercury News.
"And 2015 is showing signs of being another great year," Becker optimistically said despite national drought coverage.
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