Dolphins Show Illness in Wake of Gulf Oil Spill

http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/44184

California Wildlife Official Under Fire for Puma Hunt

So what happens when you're a wildlife official and you decide to hunt a species that is illegal in your state in a neighboring one? Scrutiny. 

Dan Richards is the state Fish and Game Commission president in California, where cougar killing is banned.  Recently, he went on an Idaho cougar hunt and took a man-sized cougar.  Animal rights activists and 40 California Democratic Assembly members have demanded that he resign from his appointed position and to top it off he was hit with a complaint to the state's ethics commission that the lion hunt was an illegal "freebee".

Richards has argued that what he has done was legal--in Idaho, it is completely legal and he utilized what he killed and has informed the public that he will not step down.  Cougar hunting was banned in CA in the early 1990s, but it is still legal in many other states.  The article states that, "The mountain lion population in the state is stable with an estimated 4,000-to-6,000 of the creatures. The big cats can only be killed by special depredation permit or to preserve public safety or to protect endangered bighorn sheep." 

However, now CA's Lt. Governor is questioning whether they should have a hunter in Richard's position, since he seems to not be "in step" with everyone else (since he went out and killed a cougar).  It has been proposed twice in CA that cougar hunting be reinstated--however, it has yet to be.  This is what the CEO of the Humane Society of America had to say on his blog about the issue: "If Richards didn't agree with the voters' judgment to ban lion hunting, and even if lion hunting is in fact legal in Idaho, as president of the commission he should have exhibited some respect to the electorate he serves and restrained himself from killing a lion for the heck of it." However, many of his Republican colleagues are stepping up for him and saying that he has done nothing wrong and what's his business should in fact remain his business. 

http://www.thestate.com/2012/03/02/2175131/calif-wildlife-official-under.html#storylink=misearch