Monterey County sued for killing coyotes, bobcats and mountain lions.

In order to protect the ag industry, as well as help property owners deal with wildlife, Monterey County has contracted the killing of 3,563 animals—mostly coyotes, but also including mountain lions and bobcats—over the past six years, according to a recent lawsuit against the county.

To slow down the cull, a coalition of environmental groups have sued the county in an attempt to use the California Environmental Quality Act to force an environmental analysis of the annual contracts. The suit was filed in the Superior Court of California, Monterey in June 1 by Project Coyote, Animal Legal Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, among others.

"In California, any time you disturb a natural environment by building roads or by removing natural resources, you have to make sure it can be sustainable," says Fauna Tomlinson of Project Coyote. "That’s what environmental impacts reports are for and it’s not what the county is doing."

The environmental groups claim the county’s most recent contract with the United States Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services, which was reached in April, did not include an environmental impact report on the effects that killing hundreds of predators would have on the ecosystem.

Counties across the state and country work with the USDA’s Integrated Wildlife Damage Management Program to mitigate the impact of wild animals. Bob Roach, assistant agriculture commissioner for Monterey County, says there are two full-time Wildlife Service employees who respond to calls from deep South County to Prunedale and near everywhere between. 

Monterey County covers roughly two-thirds of the programs expenses at around $100,000 a year with the remainder covered by the federal government.

In the 2014-15 fiscal year, there were 820 field visits by Wildlife Services officials in Monterey County dealing with coyotes, says Roach, with 105 of those instances—12.8 percent—resulting in the death of an animal. During the same time period, two boars, two bobcats and one mountain lion was culled.

While the suit against the county claims Wildlife Services has used traps, snares and poison, Roach says he only knows of animals being put down by firearms in Monterey County.

"[Wildlife Services] only uses lethal force when necessary," says Roach. "Their focus is on long-term solutions."

The suit against the county come after the coalition won a similar suit against Mendocino County. Having seen the result of that court ruling, Monterey County started drafting an environmental impact report on the Wildlife Services program operating in the county before the latest CEQA Act suit was filed, says Roach.