Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill into law on Oct. 11 but recently a firearms trade association asked the California Attorney General’s office to look into a potential conflict of interest.

Mike Sutton, the commissioner of the California Fish and Game Commission, will be implementing the legislation. But he is also the paid director of Audubon California, one of the two sponsors of AB711.

Lawrence Keane, the senior vice president and general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, last Monday, sent a letter (reproduced below) to California Attorney General Kamala Harris requesting a formal investigation into Sutton’s income and activities.

Keane wants a legal determination on whether Sutton has violated, or is in violation of, any state laws or policies respecting his public and private positions.

The best known responsibility of the commission is its general regulatory powers function, according to the commission website.

For our CalWatchdog.com investigation into the matter we contacted California Fish and Game Commission to ask about Sutton’s alleged conflicts of interest and requested Sutton’s Fair Political Practices Commission Form 700, Statement of Economic Interests reports.

Sutton’s Form 700 (shown below) shows he is compensated by Audubon California and the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Copies obtained of Sutton’s FPPC Form 700s (shown below) for 2012 have some added language not typically on such forms: “Disclosure of this source of income is not legally required, but made voluntarily.”

In response to that statement on the disclosure form  Keane said “I think it speaks for itself.” He added: “This is why we requested the investigation into his income and activities.”

The National Audubon Society appointed Sutton as vice president of the Pacific Flyway the same time he was appointed executive director of Audubon California in May 2012.

Sutton’s FPPC Form 700 disclosures

Sutton’s bio on the California Fish and Game Commission website says:

“President Michael Sutton, of Monterey, was appointed to the Fish and Game Commission on May 3, 2007. … He was reappointed on March 25, 2009 to a six-year term. Sutton currently serves as Executive Director of Audubon California and Vice President, Pacific Flyway with the National Audubon Society.  Previously, he founded the Center for the Future of the Oceans at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in 2004 and served as program officer for the conservation and science program at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation from 1999 to 2004. Prior to that, Sutton worked at the World Wildlife Fund from 1990 to 1999.  He also served as special agent for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from 1984 to 1990. Sutton worked for the National Park Service as a park ranger from 1980 to 1984.

“His term on the Commission expires January 15, 2015.”

According to the Form 700 disclosure reports, Sutton currently receives more than $100,000 annual income from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation. He also received a seven-year loan in 2010 of more than $100,000 from the aquarium foundation, with a 3.5 percent interest rate, for a personal residence.

Sutton also received more than $100,000 in income from the National Audubon Society in 2012, and income from the Monterey Bay Aquarium up to $100,000.

Audubon California was one of the sponsors of AB711.

Sutton had a paid summer faculty job at Vermont Law School, for which he was paid up to $10,000, the FPPC Form 700 disclosure report shows.

Questions

After contacting Fish and Game Deputy Director Adrianna Shea about Sutton’s alleged conflicts,  Shea  requested the questions were sent to her in an email.

Here are the questions for Shea:

* “Given that Sutton is appointed to Audubon California as its Executive Director, and the Pacific Flyway while also appointed to the Fish and Game Commission, do these conflicts speak for themselves?

* “Audubon California was a chief sponsor of AB711, the bill signed in October to ban lead ammunition. But AB711 requires the Fish and Game Commission, by July 1, 2014, to certify, by regulation, non-lead ammunition.

* “Commissioner Sutton takes income from Audubon California and Audubon, his employer, lobbies state government.

* “Commissioners are prohibited from making or participating in or using positions to influence commission decisions in which the commissioner has a financial interest.” 

Shea sent me a copy of a March letter from the FPPC (shown  below), which said,

“It is not reasonably foreseeable that Fish and Game’s decision implementing the Ridley-Tree Condor Preservation Act will have any financial effect on the commissioner’s employer, the Audubon Society.”

While the FPPC letter said Sutton and Audubon claim that the lead ammo ban bills would not affect their funding or fundraising, the Audubon Society continued to send out fundraising emails and post requests on its website for funding during the legislative debate over AB711.

On its website, and in an email request, Audubon said:

“With your help, Audubon is leading the charge to get the lead out from coast to coast:

“Audubon has led a years-long effort to require non-lead ammunition for hunting in California. Just this month the legislature sent a ban bill to the governor’s desk, despite unprecedented opposition from the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups. Audubon and its partners have mustered tremendous support among state lawmakers and countered the avalanche of fear tactics and propaganda from the gun lobby. If you live in California, please ask Gov. Brown to sign the bill.”

Lead ammo ban

Discussing the bill and the activities of the Humane Society and Audubon California, with Keane in September he told me the science proves there is not one species impacted by lead ammunition, and the existing lead ban has not had an impact on California condors. “This is just an effort to restrict the use of ammo in states,” Keane said.

And according to Keane, the animal rights groups needed the California Legislature to pass the bill in order to pressure other states to do the same.

My Dec. 16, 2013 article, “Condors thriving before new lead ammo ban,” provides more background on AB711.

But the recent report from the U.S. Department of the Interior found that the Condor Recovery Program “continues to increase the number of condors in the wild in Arizona, Utah, California and Baja California.

As of the end of July, according to the report, “there are 429 condors in the world of which 224 are free flying (California 123, Arizona/Utah 71; Baja California 30).”

The number is up from only about 55 condors as recently as 1990. The following graph shows the steady increase, which is expected to continue.

Bullets

Concern has been advanced in California that lead from hunters’ bullets has been killing off the condors. The federal condor report was submitted from the U.S. Department of the Interior to the California Fish and Game Commission on Oct. 29. That was 18 days after Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law Assembly Bill 711, by Assemblyman Anthony Rendon, D-South Gate. The bill bans using lead bullets in hunting in California beginning in 2019.

According to the bill’s language:

“California passed a successful law preventing the use of lead ammunition in condor habitat. However, because these restrictions only apply in certain areas or to the hunting of particular species, many species of wildlife remain threatened by the use of lead ammunition and more protections are needed. These successes have shown us how to extend protection from lead poisoning to other wildlife.”

In his signing statement, Brown wrote:

“Lead poses a danger to wildlife. This danger has been known for a long time. … Since 2007, California has prohibited it in the eight counties within the condor range. In fact, at least thirty other states regulate lead ammunition in some manner.”

However, the federal report found that the increase in the condor population began well before a 2007 ban by of the use of lead bullets by hunters in condor areas. The above graph clearly shows a steadily increasing trend line that did not jump upward beginning in 2007.

One hypothesis the paper offers is that “there are other sources of lead in the environment that condors may be accessing, including 5 individual condors apparently ingesting chips of lead-based paint on a fire tower.”

The authors point to a recent study that found 8 percent of the birds had exposure to lead that “did not match the isotopic signature of ammunition, background levels, or paint, indicating an unidentified source of lead in the environment.” 

Caring for condors

Of the “other sources” of threats to the condors, micro trash especially can be deadly. According to the Santa Clarity Community Hiking Club, which has taken the lead in cleaning condor habitats:

“Micro-trash consists of little bits and pieces of glass, metal and plastic. The Condors are attracted to these items because they sparkle and shine. They eat it, and feed it to their chicks. Both the adults and chicks die. In the last 5 years, we have picked up more than 5,000 lbs of micro-trash in the forest.”

Indeed, it is human involvement that has saved this mighty symbol of California. Every condor is tagged, as you can see in the picture of the condor at the top of the page.

According to the federal study, every condor is captured once a year — twice a year in California — examined by veterinarians and if necessary treated with medicines or more invasive procedures. “Virtually all condors are equipped with VHF telemetry units, and each site regularly tracks the condors that come from that site,” according to the study. Some condors even “are equipped with GPS units,” so they can be closely tracked.

Perhaps if these facts had been better known, AB711 might have had a harder time passing during the rush to pass dozens of bills in mid-September. The votes included many Democrats crossing the aisles to vote Nay, such as state Sen. Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana.

As the 2019 deadline nears, it’s possible the Legislature might revisit it, in particular if it looks as if the state’s hunting industry will be hard hit by the ban on lead bullets, leading to the loss of jobs. In his signing statement, Brown also promised, “the least disruptive phase-in, including incentives for hunters to make the transition.”