BILL TO BAN BOBCAT TRAPPING HELD UP IN COMMITTEE

A bill that would outlaw commercial trapping of bobcats was debated in a state Assembly committee yesterday. Lawmakers took no action on the measure and decided to take it up again later. The Bobcat Protection Act of 2013, or AB 1213, grew out of a controversy in Joshua Tree when a resident found a trap on his property and others in the community noticed that bobcats they used to see near Joshua Tree National Park had vanished. Democratic Assemblyman Richard Bloom of Santa Monica, who proposed the bill, said at the hearing in Sacramento that no reliable population estimates for bobcats exist in California and that state officials are therefore unable to determine a sustainable trapping limit.