Public Outcry Leads Encinitas to Halt Extermination of Skunks
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ENCINITAS — After a public outcry, city officials have temporarily halted a trapping and extermination program aimed at eliminating skunks.
In recent weeks, federal animal control officers have caught and killed 11 skunks after setting steel-mesh cage traps on the lawns of the 11-home private neighborhood of Cardiff. Using an injection of sodium pentobarbital, a worker euthanized the skunks.
On Friday city officials decided to investigate passing a law that would forbid the killing of wild animals in Encinitas.
But David Moreno, a wildlife biologist for the Department of Agriculture who has supervised the trapping, said euthanasia of skunks is the only way to rid a neighborhood of them, since relocating efforts are rarely successful.
Animal control officials were summoned to the neighborhood in July when skunk numbers increased significantly, neighbors say.
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