Environmental laws not broken on Santa Cruz
March 29, 2006
A federal judge ruled on Monday that the Channel Islands National Park is not violating environmental laws as it eradicates wild pigs from Santa Cruz Island in an effort to return the island to its natural state and re-establish endangered island fox populations.
Monday's ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Dickran Tevrizian was the latest defeat in a string of unsuccessful legal maneuverers by animal rights activists to halt the extermination of more than 5,000 pigs on the island.
The pigs, which ranchers introduced to the island in the 1850s, are being killed because park ecologists say they harm the island's landscape by eating endangered plants, digging up archeological sites and making it difficult for the endemic island fox populations to rebound.
Rick Feldman, a Santa Barbara businessman who brought the suit, said he will appeal the decision in hopes of stopping what he called a brutal slaughter.
"Brutality is brutality is brutality and when good people stand by and let that happen, it's a terrible thing," he said.
Park officials said the decision vindicates their efforts to rid the island of introduced species which have changed the island from its natural, pre-colonization state.
"This is a win for the nine endangered plants, the significant archeological resources and, of course, the island fox and all of the values the National Park has set aside on the Channel Islands," said park spokeswoman Yvonne Menard.
The previous injunctions and temporary restraining orders filed by Feldman, Robert Puddicombe and In Defense of Animals were never successful in stopping the pig hunt, which began in April. In each motion, Feldman maintained that the Park Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the California Environmental Quality Act when it devised the plans to remove the pigs. Monday's ruling says there were no violations.
The Park Service is hoping a New Zealand company hired to hunt the pigs will have them all removed by June 2007. About 85 percent of the island has been cleared of 4,810 pigs so far, Menard said.
Removing the pigs is the linchpin in a larger ecological plan to re-establish the island fox and the bald eagle. Golden eagles, which are not native to the island, are attracted to piglets for prey and keep bald eagles from living on the islands. Bald eagles mainly hunt on the ocean and don't eat foxes.
By killing the pigs and trapping and removing the golden eagles, biologists are hoping the fox and bald eagles will thrive on the island.
