Charles Harper
Régisseur
Two short news items from the latest Western Tanager (the Los Angeles Audubon Society newsletter):
CONDOR KILLER FINED: Britton Cole Lewis, 29, the Kern County hunter who cannot tell the difference between a California Condor and a pig, was fined $20,000, given five years probation, and ordered to hand over the gun and scope used in his February, 2003 shooting of AC-8, a 30 year old condor. Originally captured in 1986, she had been released in April 2000 as part of the Condor Recovery program and was expected to mentor the younger, captivity-bred condors released in the wild. RIP, AC-8.
SWAINSON'S HABITAT COST SOARS: Sacramento County has tripled the fees that developers must pay as mitigation for destroying habitat for threatened Swainson's Hawks. The vote to raise the mitigation fee from $750 to $2,833 for every acre destroyed came after the Nature Conservancy said that "it would no longer administer the habitat con_servation program if the fee was not raised." Soaring land prices had ren_dered the old fee, which had not changed in five years, "grossly inadequate."
CONDOR KILLER FINED: Britton Cole Lewis, 29, the Kern County hunter who cannot tell the difference between a California Condor and a pig, was fined $20,000, given five years probation, and ordered to hand over the gun and scope used in his February, 2003 shooting of AC-8, a 30 year old condor. Originally captured in 1986, she had been released in April 2000 as part of the Condor Recovery program and was expected to mentor the younger, captivity-bred condors released in the wild. RIP, AC-8.
SWAINSON'S HABITAT COST SOARS: Sacramento County has tripled the fees that developers must pay as mitigation for destroying habitat for threatened Swainson's Hawks. The vote to raise the mitigation fee from $750 to $2,833 for every acre destroyed came after the Nature Conservancy said that "it would no longer administer the habitat con_servation program if the fee was not raised." Soaring land prices had ren_dered the old fee, which had not changed in five years, "grossly inadequate."