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Gordon Barnhardt and Haverfield v. Board of County Commissioners of Logan County

Pays/Territoire
États-Unis d'Amérique
Type de cour
Nationale - cour supérieure
Date
Jul 13, 2012
Source
UNEP, InforMEA
Nom du tribunal
Court of Appeal of Kansas
Juge
Buser, Atcheson and Knudson.
Numéro de référence
No. 105178
Langue
Anglais
Sujet
Environnement gén., Espèces sauvages et écosystèmes
Mot clé
Faune sauvage Espèces végétales protégées Espèces animales protégées Espèces halieutiques protégées Substances dangereuses Protection des espèces
Résumé

The Logan County Commission began a campaign to force landowners throughout the county to eradicate prairie dogs in the summer of 2005. During the past seven years the commission has hired and sent extermination contractors and a county employee to the Haverfield ranch complex with mandates that the land be poisoned with toxicants including Rozol Prairie Dog Bait and Phostoxin, a dangerous gas that kill everything in treated burrows. The Logan County Commission and the Kansas Farm Bureau have spearheaded litigation to force landowners to comply with eradication orders. The landowners have defended their interests in various court proceedings. Audubon of Kansas and other wildlife conservation organizations have argued in the Kansas Legislature that the eradication statutes (K.S.A. 80-1202) used by counties to force landowners to poison prairie dogs, enacted more than a century ago, is antiquated and should be repealed. When eradication mandates are imposed, they drastically infringe on private property rights and they promote extinction of wildlife when conservation and stewardship should be the state’s role. The landowners–who wanted to retain prairie dogs, the ferrets and other wildlife on their land argued that the Endangered Species Act (ESA) preempts the county from unilateral eradication of prairie dogs within the complex. Eradication as “authorized” under K.S.A. 80-1202 would destroy the food supply and habitat of the Black-footed Ferret, constituting an unlawful taking under the ESA. Kansas Court of Appeals panel affirmed the decision by Senior Judge Jack Lively, which permanently enjoined the Board of County Commissioners of Logan County from eradicating prairie dogs on approximately 10,000 acres of ranchland. The Court of Appeals declared that the ESA preempts K.S.A. 80-1202 because eradication may constitute an unlawful taking within the meaning of the act. The district court was correct that it did not have jurisdiction to determine the issues the County has presented that clearly fall under federal jurisdiction. “The County’s contention lacks legal merit because it is an attempt to do an end run around the ESA and the protection afforded the black-footed ferret.

Texte intégral
COU-159715.pdf