9TH ASSEMBLY DISTRICT
Posted on
By KEVIN HOWE
Herald Staff Writer
Don't us
e the ocean as a kitty litter box.
That's part of the message brought by two state legislators who have introduced a package bill to protect the California sea otter and showcased it Friday at Monterey Bay Aquarium.
The sea otter "is more than just an icon," said Dr. Mike Murray, Aquarium veterinarian, "it's an important inshore species."
Sea otters "eat, breed, live and die" along the same shore where people catch fish, surf and go swimming, he said. Chemicals, germs, fungi and other toxins that go into the water make the otters "the canary in the coal mine" for the coast.
One pollutant that has shown up in 40 percent of sea otter carcasses showed levels of toxoplasma-gondii sufficient to cause or contribute to their deaths, Murray said, a rate "unprecedented in any other wildlife species."
The poisonous protozoan organism occurs in cat scat that washes into the ocean via storm drains or sewage treatment plants when cat owners flush their litterbox leavings or scatter them in their gardens.
Assembly Bill 2485, introduced by assemblymen John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, and Dave Jones, D-Sacramento, would require cat litter manufacturers to label their product to urge disposal of cat litter in landfills rather than in places where it might eventually wash into the ocean.
Toxoplasma-gondii can survive for months on land and isn't filtered out by soil when rain washes it into storm drains and out to sea, Murray said. Domestic cats are not native California species, and sea otters have no resistance to the organism that cats do.
The bill, which is in the state Senate Appropriations Committee's suspense file, also:
• Prohibits deposits of any substance or material deleterious to mammals. The law already prohibits such discharges that harm fish, plant life or birds.
• Increases the fines and penalties for illegally taking or killing sea otters to up to $25,000 for each animal, raising them to the same level as the penalties in federal statutes.
• Establishes a tax checkoff for state income taxpayers to contribute to sea otter research and protection.
• Shows the intent of the Legislature to create a research program administered through the California Coastal Conservancy to study sea otter mortality from nonpoint pollution sources, and treatment to eliminate pathogens that harm otters.
Jones credited a trip to the aquarium last summer with his wife, Kim Flores, son, Will, 6, and daughter Isabelle, 9, with triggering his interest in otter protection.
After being told of the harm pollutants cause otters, he said, his children asked if he could do something.
"I realized," Jones said, "that I could!"
The increase in penalties to match federal law protecting otters, Jones said, will give the state more incentive to enforce protection of otters, which are killed by humans, either deliberately or carelessly.
Laird and D'Anne Albers, executive director of Friends of the Sea Otter, urged voters to petition Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to back the bill and sign it, and to contact state senators to get the bill out of the Senate suspense file and onto the floor for a vote. A hearing on bills in suspense is scheduled in Sacramento on Thursday.
Laird said the Legislature is increasing funding for the agencies that will enforce wildlife protection -- the state Department of Fish and Game, and Department of Parks and Recreation.
"We've had very good laws to protect species," he said, "then we've presided over cutbacks of the agencies to enforce them." This year the Legislature will make sure there is adequate funding for enforcement.
Other supporters of AB2485 include Defenders of Wildlife, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Otter Protect, the Ocean Conservancy and the state Fish and Game Warden's Association.
|What the bill would do | • Increases fines and penalties for illegally taking or killing sea otters. • Expands Fish and Game code prohibiting dumping of hazardous materials deleterious to fish, plant and bird life to include mammals. • Establishes a tax checkoff benefiting sea otter research and protection. • Allows creation of a research program to study and treat otter mortality. • Changes cat litter packaging to encourage putting used litter in trash and not in wastewater.