You may remember, In Defense of Animals fought last year to stop Illinois Bill 352, which proposed an annual bobcat trapping and hunting season after 42 years of protection. There is a reason bobcats were made a protected species. In the years before they were protected, hunters drove them to the brink of extinction. Even today, as hunting permits are again being issued. Michigan news source, MLive, reports that “officials estimate [that there are only] about 5,000 bobcats in Illinois.”

Despite the fact that only 17 percent of voters actually supported the bill, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner approved it anyway, placing the interests of the hunting lobby above the voting public.

The time for the bill’s passage has now come: authority “to implement regulated harvest of bobcats” in the State was granted by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources in Public Act 99-0033, which took effect Jan. 1 (with the exception of northeastern and east-central Illinois, where bobcat “harvesting” will still be prohibited.) Hunting season will run from early November through the end of January.

http://www.daily-journal.com/sports/outdoors/bobcat-hunting-trapping-banned-in-quarter-of-state/article_086e8fa2-ac49-5466-9907-61d772a6f755.html

The specifics aren’t pretty. The bill will allow for a four month hunting and trapping season. It will permit deplorable hunting tactics, including the use of foothold traps, nasty steel-jawed leghold traps which are outlawed in many states and the European Union, and opposed by 87% of Illinois voters, and “hounding” which often results in the death of “hunting dogs.”)

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