This Drought May Be Having Some Very Weird Side Effects

A kitten boom. Succulent swiping. And, er, Bigfoot?

Bigfoot hunters believe the drought could benefit their search efforts <a href="http://www.istockphoto.com/photo/bigfoot-outdoors-11514881?st=5a3b506">Twilight Productions</a>/iStock

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Unless this is your first time on the internet, you probably know the West is experiencing a pretty serious drought right now—perhaps the worst in more than 500 years—and there are dire consequences: To name just a few, water restrictions are being enforced for the first time in California history, the farms that grow close to half the nation’s fruits and vegetables are being forced to curtail water use, groundwater drilling has caused the state to sink, and dry conditions are setting the stage for devastating wildfires. 

And just when you thought things couldn’t be any worse—bam!—here’s another crop of drought-related stuff to keep you awake at night.

Snakes and spiders and scorpions—Inside!

Growing numbers of poisonous snakes, spiders and scorpions are making their way into homes due to dry conditions. NorCal rattlesnake wrangler Len Ramirez told CBS News that in the last 30 years, he’s never been busier—and that he’d removed 72 snakes from Bay Area homes in a single week. The snakes, he said, follow thirsty rodents indoors. Oh, yeah, more rodents, too.

As for the spiders and scorpions, the drought makes them reproduce more rapidly. Then, when the temperature rises, they decide to chill out in houses and garages. They won’t be alone in their numbers: Roaches, ticks, termites, and fleas are also expected to make more regular appearances this summer. The most venomous visitors to watch for are black widow and brown recluse spiders.

Rabies on the rise

When water is scarce in the wilderness, critters start creeping into communities, and they sometimes bring rabies with them. The deadly disease, which can cause violent behavior and excessive salivating in animals and people, has been on the rise in bats, raccoons, skunks, and foxes. California health officials are warning pet owners to keep animals’ vaccinations up to date.

Succulent Swiping

These drought-tolerant plants are quickly becoming a hot commodity—and thieves are cashing in. Adapted to survive in harsh climates, the cacti and their cousins propagate easily, making them extra easy to steal. Even though most of the plant is left behind (broken-off parts of the plants can easily sprout roots and be replanted), the most beautifully cultivated arrangements are increasingly being plundered.

An abundance of Kittens

Northern California shelters are seeing way more kittens than ever before—a reported 30 percent rise—and they think the drought may be to blame. Despite doubts from some biologists, officials are citing warmer weather as the reason felines are getting frisky. Shelters strapped for space and supplies are hoping the uptick subsides soon. One can only take so much cuteness.

Gold and other stuff in lakes and rivers

With lakes and rivers at their lowest levels, there’s good news for gold prospectors. Areas that couldn’t be accessed before are suddenly open for business to professionals and hobbyists alike. The Guardian and the LA Times have run stories on the drought-spurred boom in interest, and National Geographic reports prospecting equipment sales have grown by up to 25 percent:

From his office on the leafy campus of nearby California State University, Sacramento, hydrogeologist and geology department chair Tim Horner explained that prospectors like Meyer “have been able to get to places they couldn’t before” because the drought has shrunk many of the state’s rivers, “some down to a trickle.” As an example, Horner mentioned that one of his students recently found about $900 worth of gold in a stream that had previously been too treacherous to explore.

There’s no longer much gold to go around. But there have been other kinds of treasure. The New York Times highlighted some of the interesting items discovered during the 2011 Texas drought, including tombstones from long-forgotten cemeteries, archeological artifacts and bones, and even debris from the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.

Bigfoot’s on the move

In dry times, large animals like bears and mountain lions are known to turn up in communities looking for food and water. This has some Sasquatch seekers speculating about how Bigfoot might deal with the drought. The History Channel show MonsterQuest, which correlated sightings and rainfall, assumes the mythological (?) ape-man prefers a moist habitat. As conditions change, some believe Bigfoot and his/her/its kind will be on the move, making them easier to spot or isolate. 

“It is an interesting proposition,” says Jeffrey Meldrum, a biology professor at Idaho State University and author of Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science. “I wouldn’t totally discount that. There’s going to be potential, if an individual animal finds itself in a situation when things get dire.”

Still, he says, due to how rare they are, and the fact that Sasquatch has smarts, he doubts sightings will actually increase. “It reminds me of when Mount St. Helens erupted. There were all sorts of stories of animals migrating out of the range of the explosion before it actually happened, and a supposed increase of sightings and signs of Bigfoot. Everyone was expecting to find a Bigfoot corpse or two in the aftermath. But nothing credible resulted.”

The search continues.

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate