AR-News: (CA) State proposal boosts trapping and hunting

[Jill Kiesow]

CALIFORNIA
State proposal boosts trapping and hunting
More red foxes, bobcats could be killed under rules

<mailto:jkay at sfchronicle.com>Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment Writer

San Francisco Chronicle
Saturday, June 26, 2004





The state Department of Fish and Game has proposed new rules that would 
legalize the hunting and trapping of red foxes and nearly double the number 
of trapping days for bobcats, whose pelt prices have jumped to $186 apiece.

The rules also would exempt thousands of backyard wildlife trappers from 
the licensing provisions of a law passed two years ago to regulate their 
burgeoning businesses.

The state agency presented draft regulations to the Fish and Game 
Commission in Crescent City on Thursday. The commission will vote on the 
proposals on Aug. 27 after public hearings that are expected to bring out 
animal protection advocates, hunters, backyard wildlife trappers and 
commercial fur trappers spurred by rising bobcat, beaver and badger pelt 
prices.

In March, the California Trappers' Association in Elk Creek asked Fish and 
Game for a four-month hunting season, allowing an unlimited kill of red 
fox. Dogs, bows and arrows, traps and guns could be used. The group also 
requested the extension of the bobcat trapping season to 120 days.

Red fox hunting would be allowed statewide, except in a special zone in the 
territory of the native Sierra Nevada red fox.

The Animal Protection Institute, a Sacramento animal advocacy group, 
opposed the proposal, charging that Fish and Game "is catering to a 
minority of Californians who like to kill red foxes and bobcats for fun or 
profit.''

Camille Fox, director of wildlife programs with the institute, said, "The 
vast majority of Californians neither hunt nor trap, and value the state's 
wildlife. Most citizens would love to see a red fox in the wild, and would 
be sickened to see one either chased and pursued by hounds or shot by bow 
and arrow or trapped.''

Red foxes were brought to California in the late 1800s to use as prey in 
fox hunts, then farmed for fur through the early 1900s.

There are no estimates of their numbers, but they can be found in parts of 
the Central Valley and close to the coast.

Fish and Game associate biologist Jesse Garcia said his agency has 
supported a hunting season on the red fox for some time.

"It's been a problem for years," he said.

The red fox is "well documented in killing sensitive, threatened and 
endangered species, whether they be ground-nesting birds, rodents or 
reptiles, " he said. "We've also had requests from private persons who have 
had losses of poultry and some anecdotal observation of pheasant losses.

"I question that people will actually don the British garb and all the pomp 
and circumstance to hunt fox in the California heat.''

Fox said a current law already allows for the removal of red foxes if they 
pose a danger to threatened and endangered species.

In the mid-1980s, the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge in Fremont 
started a program to capture the red foxes that were coming to the marsh 
and eating the eggs and young of the endangered California clapper rail. 
Hundreds of foxes have been trapped and euthanized.

Instigating a trapping and hunting season "will do nothing to mitigate the 
conflicts between red foxes and wild and domestic animals,'' Fox said.

Red foxes provide free rodent control for many ranchers, she added.

In its request to extend trapping season on bobcats by 51 days, the 
California Trappers' Association had argued that trappers have 69 days a 
year, compared with 137 for hunters.

According to Fish and Game, in the 2002-03 season, trappers took 394 
bobcats and sport hunters took 342, a 21 percent increase from the previous 
year. Driving the proposed extension of the season is the increase over a 
year in the average pelt price -- from $66 to $186.

Fish and Game officials estimate there are 72,000 adult bobcats in the 
state and say 14,400 could be killed a year without harming the population. 
But other scientists say no sound surveys have been done.

The proposed regulations also say that trappers capturing certain animals 
that venture into urban territory and bother property owners wouldn't have 
to get Fish and Game licenses that could have mandated humane handling.

Under a 2002 law, people who trap for profit fur-bearing mammals or nongame 
mammals designated by the Fish and Game Commission must obtain Fish and 
Game licenses, which require showing competency in the field. But the draft 
regulations state that the commission would exempt raccoons, skunks, 
opossums, ground and fox squirrels, gophers, moles, rats and voles -- the 
most commonly caught backyard animals -- from the training and licensing 
procedures. Exemption doesn't extend to badgers, beavers, muskrats, 
bobcats, coyotes, gray fox, mink and weasels.

Michael Taber, president of the California Nuisance Wildlife Control 
Operators Association in Fresno, a trade group, doesn't want to see these 
animals left out of the new law.

"The department is required to come up with the testing guidelines and the 
licensing requirements," he said. "When you're naming a handful of species 
to exempt, you're abdicating your responsibility as the agency with 
oversight. ''

Tom Belt, a retired patrol captain at Fish and Game, had worked six months 
with Taber's group, as well as animal advocacy and wildlife rehabilitation 
groups, to come up with draft regulations to meet the new law. However, 
their work on a training manual and tests wasn't included in the package 
presented Thursday.

Belt was disappointed. He said wildlife trappers need training and 
guidelines. Over 27 years, he's heard horrendous stories of botched animal 
removals.

"I've heard of tying a bag with live animals to the end of a car tailpipe, 
leaving them unattended to die of thirst or starvation, and stabbing them 
to death.''

The provisions included using approved euthanasia techniques and reducing 
the time limits to check traps to better free pets or reduce suffering of 
wildlife.

E-mail Jane Kay at <mailto:jkay at sfchronicle.com>jkay at sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/06/26/BAG087C4701.DTL



Posted by:
Animal Protection Institute
PO Box 22505
Sacramento, CA 95822
916-447-3085
www.api4animals.org

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