Mon 1/28: Ban all commercial fur-trapping in CA. “Yes” on AB 273.

Today I introduced #AB273 to ban fur trapping in California. “Not only does the cruel fur trapping trade decimate our increasingly vulnerable wildlife populations, but it doesn’t make sense to subsidize this industry with our tax dollars.

— Lorena Gonzalez (@LorenaAD80) January 24, 2019

Action: Ask your CA assembly member to cosponsor a new law to stop commercial fur trapping.

San Francisco, once a hub in the global fur trade, banned the sale of fur last year. California lawmakers also are considering a bill that would ban the sale of fur statewide. Let’s get the statewide effort started now.

Minimal script: I’m calling from [zip code] to ask Assembly Member [____] to cosponsor and vote “YES” for AB 273 – Fur-bearing and nongame mammals: recreational and commercial fur trapping: prohibition.Contact:
State Assembly Member Monique Limón: (CA-37): SAC (916) 319-2037, SB (805) 564-1649, VTA (805) 641-3700 email
Not your people?:findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov.

Not in CA? Check out your state’s laws on fur-trapping. You know what to do.

Background

(from Jim Hines,Team Leader – Sierra Club California/Nevada Wildlife Team)

Greetings Wildlife Advocates:

On a beautiful winter day in the Sierra Nevada foothills a vibrant and healthy gray fox is running through a grassy meadow, frolicking and pouncing around. Then all of a sudden the gray fox is stopped in her tracks, she has become snared in a trap set by a commercial fur trapper. Killed and skinned, her pelt will fetch around $30.00 on the world fur trade market.

So sad that we have yet to ban forever the commercial trapping of native mammals for their pelts in California.

But that is about to change, but our mammals need your help.

Thanks to our good friend California Assembly member Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) who has just introduced our wildlife team legislation into the state assembly, AB 273 the California Wildlife Protection Act of 2019. This bill would ban once and for all the commercial trapping of native mammals in California.

Please help our precious wildlife and ask your member of the California Assembly to co-sponsor AB 273.

Thank you for speaking up for our precious and beautiful wildlife who cannot speak up for themselves.

for wildlife,

Jim Hines, Team Leader

Sierra Club California/Nevada Wildlife Team

And it’s not just Jim and the Sierra Club:

“The bill is supported by the nonprofit environmental advocacy group the Center for Biological Diversity, whose conservation director, Brendan Cummings, said in a statement that “this bill is an important step in ending an antiquated and cruel practice and bringing Californians wildlife management in line with the values of the overwhelming majority of Californian’s who value our wildlife alive, not as commodities to be killed and skinned for foreign fur markets.

Trapping licenses generated around $15,000 for the Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“Given this revenue generated by the sale of trapping licenses would only cover a fraction of the costs of even a single warden, proper management and enforcement of a fur trapping program would cost far more than the revenue generated by licenses, resulting in a de facto subsidy of commercial fur trapping.” (Sacbee)