California proposal would boost trapping

[Guest guest]

[From today's San Francisco Chronicle]

 

CALIFORNIA

State proposal boosts trapping and hunting

More red foxes, bobcats could be killed under rules

 

Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment Writer

Saturday, June 26, 2004

 

 

 

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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 jkay.