That was the headline of the Los Angeles Times article (“Lawsuit aims to end commercial fur trapping in California”) that featured our joint lawsuit with the Center for Biological Diversity last week when we sued the California Fish and Game Commission and the Department of Wildlife for improperly managing and illegally subsidizing the state’s commercial trapping program. Our suit argues that California law requires that the state’s costs of managing a commercial trapping program must be fully recovered through trapping license fees. As stated in the complaint and supporting exhibits, current license fees cover a small fraction of the trapping program costs; taxpayers are left to foot the bill for the shortfall. Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal article adds, “fees would have to be increased at least 10-fold to comply with the state law [and] such a fee boost wold effectively end the practice of trapping animals.”

The fee recovery mandate became effective in 2013, and the initial petition to force the agencies to comply with the mandate was filed almost two years ago, in December 2015. This was followed by months of effort by Project Coyote, CBD and allies to compel compliance. Because the Commission and the Department failed to act, we were forced to sue.

If successful, this lawsuit could set a nationwide precedent and presage the end of commercial trapping in California, as few trappers could likely afford the adjusted licensing fees. As I stated in the Los Angeles Times article regarding the lawsuit, “We hope the filing of this lawsuit will be remembered as the moment California said goodbye to the handful of people who still kill mammals so that their pelts can be auctioned off in foreign markets and then made into slippers and fur-trimmed coats.”

Many thanks to all who signed our Change.org Trapping Petition, which was yet another effort to compel the agencies to act in accordance with the law. We presented your signatures to the Commission and made our case bringing youth and educators with us through our Keeping It Wild Program to speak for California’s bobcats, coyotes, and foxes. Although that effort wasn’t successful in and of itself, it made a decisive statement that California’s citizens no longer support cruel and inhumane trapping in our state, and compelled us to proceed with the lawsuit.