California Mountain Lion Page

California Wildlife Protection Coalition

Prop. 197 defeated. Thanks everyone!

Note: These web pages were written to help defeat Prop. 197 last March 1996. For up to date information on Mountain Lions, please see the Mountain Lion Foundation's web page at http://www.mtn-lion.org
- DEA 12/96.

Lobbyists from the Gun Owners of California, National Rifle Association (NRA) and Safari Club rammed Senate Bill 28 through the legislature. It appeared on the March ballot as Proposition 197, but was defeated. Without collecting a single voter signature, and hiding behind a disingenuous concern for public safety, trophy hunters convinced the politicians to delete the protections for cougars that were set into law directly by the citizens of California. They are exploiting people's concerns about public safety so they can hang mountain lions over their mantelpieces.

If you blow all the smoke away, the bottom line is that Proposition 197 was a special interest trophy hunting measure, NOT a public safety measure.

Current law allows the killing of any mountain lion that poses a threat to people. It also incorporates Department of Fish and Game (DFG) regulations that specifically allow trained state personnel to kill (or authorize others to kill) any and all lions that damage livestock, domestic animals, or other private property.

But DFG won't do their job to provide public safety. Official testimony at legislative hearings and an internal DFG memo reveal that the Department has deliberately ignored the occasions when mountain lions posed a threat. Now, the media stories that have resulted from DFG's inaction are being used to bolster a campaign to restore trophy hunting. DFG's motivation? The Department obtains much of its funding from selling licenses to trophy hunters, and relies heavily on legislative lobbying by special interest groups like NRA for their annual budget.

California Wildlife Protection Coalition, Last updated 27 March 1996.

http://www.sierraclub.org/chapters/ca/mountain-lion/