Making A Legal Mountain Out Of A Mole Hill.

MayorBob.

Posted to Legal on Mon Apr 09, 2007 at 12:16:25 PM EST (promoted by port1080). RSS.

This is a story about how heartfelt and noble concerns for reducing cruelty to animals get a bit warped in transferring from notion to reality.  This is also a story about difference between laws as written and laws as enforced.  Ultimately, it is the story of the "Mole Guy" and his ongoing fight to help homeowners rid their properties of vermin in the form of moles.  It's also about how his insistence on doing his job in the most effective and efficient manner has turned him into a criminal in the eyes of the wildlife police in Washington state.

David Krick is the Mole Guy's given name and he's been trapping moles for close to 13 years for a living.  Krick says the best way, the only way in his mind, to get rid of moles is to trap them.  At least one source agrees with Krick about the efficacy of trapping (scroll down to Mole Control).  However, Krick has run up against officers from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) who have arrested him five times in the past seven years.  His offense, illegal use of a leghold trap to eradicate moles, is a misdemeanor charge for each mole he traps.  Krick is worried that if he's found guilty and hammered with the fines, he's out of business and his employees are unemployed.  He says the law is stupid and he's been told that by the wildlife officers who told him they don't interpret the law, they just enforce it.

Jennifer Hillman, spokesperson for the local Humane Society agrees with Krick and says the law "was never intended to ban mole and gopher trapping."  The law was passed by referendum in an attempt to put an end to leghold trapping of wildlife for recreation or commerce in fur.  So, let's go to the law in question -- Initiative 713.  What the people of Washington voted on back in 2000 was a law which banned "the use of any steel-jawed leghold trap, neck snare, or other body-gripping trap to capture any mammal for recreation or commerce in fur."  What Krick is doing is not recreation and he doesn't do any commerce in mole fur.  But, when the WDFW got around to defining what it was enforcing with this law, their wording added a bit of a twist to the wording of the measure the voters voted for:

"The initiative makes it unlawful to use or to authorize the use of body-gripping traps to capture any animal, except by special permit for protection of endangered or threatened species; protection of public health and safety; to alleviate animal problems, or to conduct wildlife research. It also makes it illegal to buy, sell or trade mammals or the raw fur of mammals taken in Washington with body-gripping traps."

According to Hillman, the Humane Society has tried any number of times to clarify the law and make it as legal to trap moles as it is to trap mice and gophers.  But, thus far all attempts to get this clarification through the legislature has failed.  Captain Bill Hebner of the WDFW says there is a good reason why Krick has been arrested - he's breaking the law.  If Krick would take a course the state offers and apply for a license, he could use those scissor traps he favors to do his job.  Krick has instead filed a complaint (pdf doc) in state court saying the WDFW is "unconstitutionally interfering with his right to earn a living" requesting injunctive relief.