Animal welfare advocates back in court over Mendocino County trapping program

Animal welfare advocates have filed a second lawsuit over Mendocino County’s controversial contract with federal trappers who hunt down animals that prey on livestock or damage property.

The plaintiffs contend the county, by renewing the trapper contract in June, failed to live up to both state environmental law and the legal agreement that settled the first lawsuit, filed last year.

“We’re right back to where we were in the beginning,” said Jessica Blome, staff attorney for the Animal Legal Defense Fund, one of the half dozen groups behind the legal challenge.

The new suit is the second attempt to halt or at least alter a program that many animal rights groups consider cruel and unnecessary. Nearly 3 million animals were killed nationwide through the federal trapping program in 2014, according to environmentalists. Most of them were birds, a majority of them killed in the name of aviation safety, according to agency data.

Federal trapping programs across the nation have been under fire for both their lethal methods of deterring predators and for killing innocent animals in the process, including eagles and household pets. Animal rights activists would like to see added reliance on non-lethal solutions, like fencing and guard dogs. Farmers say that can help, but it’s not enough. In places where federal trappers are banned, such as Marin County, many farmers report that they have simply begun shooting the predators themselves.

The animal welfare groups settled the first lawsuit in Mendocino County earlier this year after the county agreed to do an environmental review of the program, consider nonlethal methods of controlling predators, and pay the groups’ attorney fees of about $5,000.

The county held hearings and collected information about the issue. On the advice of its outside legal counsel, the county then determined the program was exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act, which requires rigorous studies of land and natural resource projects and programs. The county renewed the $142,357 contract for two USDA trappers without such review, the new lawsuit contends.

“Mendocino County’s claim of exemption from CEQA constitutes a blatant and willful breach of the settlement agreement,” according to the lawsuit.

Supervisor John McCowen said county officials did conduct a study and the facts were used to make its determination that further study was unnecessary.

“There was extensive environmental review that I think proved there will be no significant impact to any species of predator,” he said.

The lawsuit asks that the trapping contract be set aside while a mandatory, more comprehensive environmental study is conducted.