Jumping the Gun

On April 8, the California Fish and Game Commission meeting in Long Beach voted 2 to 1 to approve a 1988 sport hunting season for mountain lions. Before the ink on the order was even dry--on the very same day--the commission and the California Fish and Game Department filed a 10-page lawsuit in Superior Court in Sacramento against the Mountain Lion Preservation Foundation for a judgment authorizing the hunt.

What had the Mountain Lion Preservation Foundation done to warrant being sued by the state agencies? It merely had testified at a commission hearing against the proposed hunt. The commission thus was assuming a number of things when it had the lawsuit prepared in advance of the meeting. One assumption was that the commission would indeed vote for the season for the killing of 190 lions, although one member did not vote on the proposal and another was absent.Another assumption was that the federation would sue to stop the hunt, as it did successfully in 1987. But no suit had been filed.

Since when has mere disagreement with a state agency at a public hearing on an issue of considerable public controversy justified the bringing of a lawsuit by a state agency and a demand for legal fees and court costs?

The foundation probably would have sued, and in the same court that handled the matter late last year when San Francisco Superior Court Judge Lucy Kelly McCabe berated the Fish and Game Department for its inadequate and shoddy environmental-impact assessment of its proposed hunt. This time, the commission sought to make a preemptive strike, possibly in a court more favorable to its zeal for hunting lions.

If the commission’s action is not extralegal, it certainly is outrageous and should be rescinded.