June 19, 2024
Senator Alex Padilla
331 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Senator Padilla,
We applaud your efforts to better protect the Federal lands in the Mojave Desert of California. On May 15, 2024, the Senate Committee on Energy and National Resources Subcommittee on National Parks conducted hearings on your S. 4222, which would incorporate the lands of the Castle Mountains National Monument into the surrounding Mojave National Preserve. We write today to alert you to a potential unintended consequence that could reduce protections for wildlife now living on national monument lands. We ask that you amend the bill to avert this adverse outcome.
In 1994, Congress passed the California Desert Protection Act (CDPA), which created the Mojave National Preserve, comprised almost entirely of Federal public lands between Interstates 15 and 40. Section 506(b) of the CDPA mandated that the new National Park Service (NPS) unit would be open to hunting and trapping, although the Secretary retained authority to designate areas where these activities would not be permitted.
On February 12, 2016, President Obama proclaimed a Castle Mountains National Monument under the authority of the Antiquities Act of 1906. The monument of just under 21,000 acres is surrounded on three sides by the National Preserve. The Proclamation vested management authority over the new monument to the NPS. The Monument is distinguished from the Preserve in that the Presidential Proclamation does not authorize hunting or trapping. The Proclamation directed the NPS to administer the Monument under the authorities that govern the national park system.
Under Section 3 of the Organic Act of August 25, 1916, the Secretary of the Interior is authorized to adopt such regulations as deemed necessary for the protection and management of the parks in the national park system. The regulations allow hunting and/or trapping only in those areas of the national park system where “specifically” mandated by Federal law (36 CFR 2.2(b)). The law establishing Mojave National Preserve meets this test; the Castle Monument Proclamation does not.
Currently, hunters may pursue a wide range of quarry in the Preserve, discharging weapons any day of the year. If Castle Monument lands are incorporated into the Preserve without an explicit limitation on taking of wildlife, lands within the Monument that are currently closed to hunting and trapping will become open to both (state law already restricts trapping for recreational and commercial purposes). We trust that this is not your intent. We therefore ask that you amend the legislation to prohibit all trapping in the Preserve that would prospectively include the former Monument (aligning federal law with state law), and to limit recreational sport hunting to big game (mule deer and bighorn sheep) and upland game birds only. Such an action would have negligible impact on mainstream forms of recreational hunting, and it would be in accordance with the NPS General Management Plan of September 28, 2001, which expressed the intent to limit hunting in the Preserve, but which has never been fully implemented.
Thank you for your consideration. We look forward to working with you to ensure that protections for the wildlife of California remain robust long into the future. The amendment we propose is crucial to this goal.
Sincerely yours,
Wayne Pacelle President Animal Wellness Action Elaine Leslie Executive Council The Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks Tara Thornton Deputy Director Endangered Species Coalition Vincent Wong Vice President, Public Affairs Michelson Center for Public Policy | Jeff Ruch Director of Pacific Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) Annie Harvilicz Chief Medical Officer Animal Wellness Foundation Kevin Emmerich Co-Founder Basin and Range Watch |
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