Opinion ID: 779503
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Impact of Proposition 4 on Trapping Practices

Text: 5 On November 6, 1998, two days after the passage of Proposition 4, the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) issued a press release describing Proposition 4. It announced that the new law makes it generally illegal to trap fur-bearing and non-game animals with commonly used traps and to buy, sell, or exchange the fur of mammals that have been captured with these traps. The press release further stated that, DFG and other governmental agencies will now have to use traps other than leg-hold traps to control predators, including those that prey on threatened and endangered species in California. It instructed individuals affected by Proposition 4 to follow its provisions where they conflict with existing trapping regulations.
6 As a result of Proposition 4 and DFG's press release, many individual private trappers, including individual trapper-intervenors and other members of the trapper organizations, stopped using leghold traps. Prior to the passage of Proposition 4, these trappers engaged in trapping for recreation, for interstate commerce in fur, and for protection of property and endangered animals. Their activities included trapping conducted under contracts with state, local, and federal governments, in order to protect everything from levees, to livestock, and to the California least tern. Since issuing the press release more than two years ago, the DFG has made no further public announcements regarding enforcement of Proposition 4. One individual private trapper has been arrested and prosecuted for violation of Proposition 4. 4
7 In the past, various federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA/APHIS), have used leghold traps in California. Prior to the passage of Proposition 4, federal agencies used leghold traps to protect livestock and other property pursuant to the ADCA, 7 U.S.C. §§ 426-426c. Leghold traps were also used to protect threatened or endangered species — including California clapper rails, western snowy plovers, least terns, and salt marsh harvest mice—from predators, pursuant to the ESA, 16 U.S.C. §§ 1531-44. They were also used to protect a variety of bird species — including herons, egrets, terns, gulls, and other nesting species — pursuant to the MBTA, 16 U.S.C. §§ 703-712. Within the National Wildlife Refuge System, trapping also took place under the authority of the NWRSIA, 16 U.S.C. § 668dd. Specific federal conservation activities included leghold trapping to capture non-native red foxes in the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge (San Francisco Bay Refuge), and to capture muskrats in the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge Complex. In both places, federal authorities believe that leghold traps are uniquely effective. 8 The state parties assert that the United States has not identified any refuge where federal trapping was conducted solely to protect MBTA species, but they concede that federal trapping to protect both MBTA- and ESA-listed species has occurred at the aforementioned wildlife refuges. For at least one of the trapping locations in the San Francisco Bay Refuge, predator management efforts were primarily directed at protecting MBTA-listed species, though trapping activities in that refuge were generally undertaken under the authority of the ESA. 9 During the initiative campaign for Proposition 4, the USDA took a strong position against it, even contributing to the ballot arguments against the initiative. Immediately after the passage of Proposition 4, the federal agencies that used leghold traps in California responded in different ways. FWS decided to continue its leghold trapping program. On the other hand, USDA/APHIS removed all of its traps and declared its intention not to place traps where it might otherwise have done so. The Audubon appellees state in their brief that USDA officials believed themselves obligated to remove the traps under federal Animal Damage Control Directive 2450, which requires that use of traps comply with applicable state laws, except where specific exemptions are obtained. Gary Simmons, USDA/APHIS's director for California, stated in his affidavit that the agency removed all leghold traps due to the danger of criminal liability and because it was agency policy to comply with all applicable state laws.