Robb Hanisee of Frazier Park sent two open letters this week. One was to the Kern County District Attorney pleading with the D.A. to prosecute Tejon Ranch Company for the illegal taking of mountain lions. The other was to J. Ikemoto of the Department of Fish and Game.

January 22, 2012

Dear Editor:

I am writing the Department of Fish and Game about my concern over Tejon Ranch’s illegal lion hunting. I live near Tejon Ranch in Frazier Park, CA.

An investigation has just been completed after a whistle blower lawsuit about illegally taking multiple mountain lions on a single permit [The Mountain Enterprise May 20, 2011: “Lawsuit Says Tejon Ranch Killed Lions Illegally”]. You can read how the upper management of Tejon Ranch insisted there was no illegal hunting. Now it has been proven that there was illegal lion hunting in an ongoing and conspiratorial manner.

Please do not give them permits to allow hunting, especially any lion permits, again. They should be required to make restitution to the lion population. Do not let them go back to their hunting operations under current management, as they appear to be liars and co-conspirators.

Corporations, the United States Supreme Court tells us, are people, so please apply the full force of the law and consider them to be a habitual offender. Do not allow them to resume hunting operations. Corporations should not be allowed to engage in illegal practices, and then when caught, blame it on a scapegoat to thereby escape any accountability or recourse.

If the Kern County DA’s office is going to roll over and not prosecute Tejon Ranch, for political reasons, then Fish and Game needs to step up to the plate and initiate a lawsuit. What good does it do for a state agency to rely on local, often politically influenced, prosecutors’ offices to enforce state law?

Robb Hanisee
Frazier Park

This is part of the January 27, 2012 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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