End Bobcat Trapping in California
Over the past few years, a rising demand for bobcat pelts in China and Russia has driven up fur prices and caused a boom in bobcat trapping in California. As a result, trappers have been targeting the boundaries of national parks — luring the cats out of these safe havens and into their deadly snares and cages.
Fortunately California's legislature passed the Bobcat Protection Act of 2013 to protect our parks and wildlife from such commercial exploits. And yet the problem continues because trapping continues in other parts of the state, and because the law has yet to be truly enforced.
The California Fish and Game Commission is tasked with this rulemaking, and one option it is now seriously considering is a statewide ban on all bobcat trapping. But the commission will only choose that option if they hear loud and clear that we value our wildlife alive — not trapped, killed, skinned and exported to be worn as fur coats in Moscow or Beijing.
Take action below — urge the commission to protect these ecologically important California natives by banning all bobcat trapping throughout the state.
Dear [Decision maker],
I am writing to urge you to implement the Bobcat Protection Act of 2013 by banning all bobcat trapping throughout the entire state of California. I was appalled to learn that hundreds of the state's native bobcats are trapped and killed each year for the sale of their skins in the international fur trade. These animals are not commodities to be exploited by a handful of trappers, and so we must protect and value them for what they are -- living members of a healthy ecosystem. If the state is to bring its wildlife laws into the 21st century, it must vote for a complete ban on trapping bobcats.
[Your comments here]
Sincerely,
[Your name]
