Rancho Palos Verdes Cleared in Butterfly Extermination Case
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SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld the dismissal of a misdemeanor charge that the City of Rancho Palos Verdes illegally exterminated a rare butterfly so it could build a baseball diamond.
The city was charged last April with one count of violating the U.S. Endangered Species Act of 1973 by destroying the last known colony of the Palos Verdes Blue Butterfly.
The federal government claimed the city rototilled the butterfly colony while building a baseball diamond at Hesse Park in April 1982, aware the area was a critically important habitat for the endangered butterfly. The development eliminated the locoweed plant, the butterflies’ staple food, and larvae feeding on the plants.
U.S. District Judge Manuel Real in Los Angeles dismissed the charge last May. He agreed with attorneys for the city, who argued that the Endangered Species Act was meant to target agents or agencies of the federal government, so that as a political subdivision of California, the City of Rancho Palos Verdes was exempt.
Real had dismissed the charge only reluctantly, attributing the loophole to “lousy legislative language.”
A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that dismissal Wednesday.
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