Jim Kellogg has stated that he is resigning from the California Fish and Game Commission, expressing frustration with the Commission’s recent actions to protect wildlife.
Kellogg showed little consideration to anyone on the commission or testifying before it who placed a concern for wildlife before the short term goals of hunters.
“For the past couple of years, I’ve been losing more battles than I’ve been winning on behalf of hunters.” Kellogg said to The Outdoor Wire. “Finally, after getting rid of the two pain-in-the-butt commissioners the governor appointed two others…”
Kellogg took an opposite stance to Michael Sutton and Richard Rogers, before they were replaced by Erik Sklar and Anthony Williams. The latter two commissioners, appointed in June of this year, voted to ban bobcat hunting statewide at the Commission’s August meeting. Kellogg was one of two no votes on the ban.
The Mountain Lion Foundation advocated against Kellogg’s reappointment to the Commission in 2013, when he replaced Dan Richards as the president of the commission after Richards was pictured with a bloody mountain lion received as an illegal free gift of a guided hunt in Idaho, violating state ethics rules. Kellogg expressed sympathy for Richards, remarking that while on out of state trips he might shoot a wolf, but “I guarantee there won’t be a picture of it.”.
Unfortunately, Kellogg was reconfirmed for another six-year term by the Senate Rules Committee on January 9, 2013 by a vote of 4:1. Kellogg’s appointment was scheduled to run through 2018.
The Mountain Lion Foundation will actively advocate that Governor Brown fill Kellogg’s seat with a Commissioner who places wildlife first to benefit all Californians, not just a few.
Kellogg gave the news of his departure and made his biases clear on the hunting website The Outdoor Wire: “A lot of the other (Ed. note: hunter and trapper biased) wardens and biologists are all bailing out. It’s a losing fight and we’re burned out on it…” Let’s hope he’s right!