On Wed, 25 Feb 1998, in response to a comment about it being legal
to kill otherwise protected wildlife when they are doing damage
to property, Jane Westervelt wrote:

> I am curious as to the justifications to these exemptions. My
> experience has been that the people wanting most to kill these
> animals have done the least to prevent the problem in the first
> place.

I don't think I will try to justify this State law. I think that it
is fairly typical of state laws - they are drafted in response to
concerns/pressures from a certain constituency. In this instance, there
was no apparent opposing force saying "Wait a minute, how can you
justify this?".

On a point of trivia, did you know that, in Washington, the reason you
can trap mice in your Lazy Susan without having a hunting license is
this exact same law that says that you are entitled to do so without
having a license because of the potential for those mice to be damaging
your personal property?

Kelly McAllister