LAST EDITED ON Oct-02-11 AT 11:25AM (MST)[p]Hmmmm. Are you sure about that?
Last I heard, the change to the bill pemits MUSEUMS and other non-profits to do it, not the general public. Was that changed?
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Jerry Brown may have warned lawmakers that he has a veto pen and isn't afraid to use it, but that didn't stop him from approving a bill that allows museums and nonprofits display dead mountain lions.
On Friday, the governor signed SB769, sponsored by Sen. Jean Fuller (R-Bakersfield), which overturns a 1990 ballot measure mandating dead animals be stored with the Department of Fish and Game. According to the Sacramento Bee, operators of a Kern County museum can finally display a dead mountain lion that's been sitting in the freezer for years as officials grappled with the existing law.
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SB 769 (Fuller)
Mountain lions: display, exhibition, or storage.
Proposition 117, an initiative measure approved by the electors at the June 5, 1990, statewide primary election, enacted the California Wildlife Protection Act of 1990. The act establishes that the mountain lion is a specially protected mammal under the laws of this state, and makes it unlawful to take, injure, possess, transport, import, or sell any mountain lion or any part or product thereof. The act establishes certain exemptions from that prohibition. The act prohibits the Legislature from changing the act, with specified exceptions, except by a 45 vote of the membership of both houses of the Legislature and then only if consistent with, and in furtherance of, the purposes of the act.
This bill would establish an exemption for the possession of a mountain lion carcass or any part or product of a mountain lion carcass, if the carcass or carcass part or product is
prepared or being prepared for display, exhibition, or storage, for a bona fide scientific or educational purpose, at a nonprofit museum or government-owned facility generally open to the public or at an educational institution, if the mountain lion was taken in California consistent with the requirements of the act and any other applicable law and the department has authorized the possession. The bill would find and declare that the amendments made by the bill are consistent with, and further the purposes of, the act.
This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
TONY MANDILE
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