IDA Fights to Stop Wild Turkey Extermination
National Park Service continues history of animal cruelty on Santa Cruz Island
 Last year, IDA teamed up with California resident Rick Feldman to save the feral pigs that had been living on Santa Cruz Island for over a century and a half. The pigs were being targeted by the National Park Service (NPS) and The Nature Conservancy, the owners of the island, because they were considered "non-native" animals. The organizations concocted a story about the pigs drawing eagles to the island who then wound up eating endangered foxes, but they didn't present the science to back up these claims.
Despite mounting criticism and charges of financial deceit, the NPS and The Nature Conservatory used taxpayer money to hire Prohunt, a New Zealand-based private exterminator company, to "kill every last pig" on the island located off the coast of Ventura. Over the course of months, Prohunt exterminators tracked down and killed over 6,000 pigs using trained dogs, guns, knives and clubs. They also dropped herbicides from helicopters and started fires for prescribed burns to destroy the pigs' habitat.
Now the same people have hired the same exterminators again for the same reason: to kill another non-native species on Santa Cruz Island. They said the pigs were bait for golden eagles, so they had them exterminated, but it was the pigs who kept the island's wild turkey population in check by competing with them for food and eating their eggs. Without the pigs around, there are now more turkeys, who are descendents of birds brought to the island by a rancher in 1972. Now the NPS and The Nature Conservatory say the turkeys must go because the eagles want to eat them, as well. In fact, Prohunt has already shot at least 250 turkeys out of an estimated population of 300.
IDA and California resident Rick Feldman are fighting to stop the turkey eradication plan. We recently filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Federal District Court for a temporary restraining order to halt the hunt. The application is based on the NPS and The Nature Conservatory's multiple violations of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which were designed to protect ecosystems from the destructive acts of property owners and administrators.
The written complaint submitted to the court includes a detailed history of the NPS's animal cruelty going back to the 1970s, when they massacred all the mules and donkeys on San Miguel Island. It also states that The Nature Conservancy shot more than 36,000 sheep on Santa Cruz Island in the 1980s, before they teamed up with the NPS to obliterate thousands of pigs.
The lawsuit also charges that the defendants violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) by failing to abide by the procedures mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) before deciding to eradicate the wild turkeys on Santa Cruz Island. Specifically, the defendants failed to prepare an environmental impact statement, as required by NEPA, before engaging in the wild turkey eradication program. The defendants also failed to abide by NEPA in neglecting to consider the cumulative impact the eradication of wild turkeys will have on the Santa Cruz Island ecosystem, specifically the bald eagle and island fox reintroduction programs.
"As far as we're concerned, the defendants inappropriately slaughtered pigs, then rushed to start slaughtering turkeys for the same nonsensical reason without doing an appropriate evaluation of the consequences. Where does it end?" asked IDA President and founder Elliot M. Katz, DVM. "These people need to be stopped. They are too quick to wipe out innocent animals while blatantly disregarding both ecological balance and the interests of other species beyond those they decide they want to save."
"This is yet another example of how the National Park Service and The Nature Conservancy operate," said Rick Feldman. "All of a sudden, with no public notice, we learned on December 19 that the agencies intended to kill an unspecified number of turkeys. This plan lacks scientific merit, a primary requirement of NEPA, and has unintended consequences. The killing goes on and on."
What You Can Do
You can help by donating to assist with legal fees to save the wild turkeys and stop the killing. Note that all donations to the cause will be spent specifically on this legal effort.
Contributions can be made payable and sent to:
IDA/ Santa Cruz Island Turkeys
3010 Kerner Blvd.
San Rafael, CA 94901
Or donate by credit card. Please designate "Santa Cruz Island Turkeys" in the First Name field of the "in honor of" section of the form.
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