BILL TEXT
INTRODUCED BY Assembly Member Koretz
FEBRUARY 11, 2003
An act to amend Sections 3960 and 4002 of, and to repeal Section
4756 of, the Fish and Game Code, relating to mammals, and making an
appropriation therefor.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
AB 342, as introduced, Koretz. Mammals: taking.
(1) Existing law prohibits a person from permitting a dog to
pursue any big game mammal, as defined, during the closed season, or
any fully protected, rare, or endangered mammal at any time.
Employees of the Department of Fish and Game are authorized to
capture any dog not under the reasonable control of its owner or
handler, that is in violation of that provision, or that is
inflicting, or immediately threatening to inflict, injury in
violation of this provision. Under existing law, certain violations
of the Fish and Game Code are misdemeanors.
Existing law prohibits a person from using dogs to hunt, pursue,
or molest bears, except under certain conditions.
This bill would recast those provisions by prohibiting a person
from allowing a dog to take any mammal for hunting purposes or from
training a dog for that purpose.
By changing the definition of a crime, the bill would impose a
state-mandated local program.
The bill would exempt from that prohibition persons who have been
issued a permit under certain circumstances, federal or state
officers in the conduct of official business, or the training of a
dog to take game birds.
This bill would require the department to adopt regulations to
implement these provisions.
(2) Existing law specifies that fur-bearing mammals may be taken
only with a trap, firearm, bow and arrow, poison, or with the use of
dogs.
This bill would delete the use of dogs as a means of taking
fur-bearing mammals.
(3) Existing law continuously appropriates money in the Fish and
Game Preservation Fund to the department to pay all necessary
expenses incurred in carrying out the Fish and Game Code.
By imposing new duties on the department, the bill would make an
appropriation.
(4) The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse
local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the
state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that
reimbursement.
This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this
act for a specified reason.
Vote: majority. Appropriation: yes. Fiscal committee: yes.
State-mandated local program: yes.
Basically in a nutshell HB 342 stops all hunting of mammals with dogs.
