Animal Legal Defense Fund Sues To Stop Texas Bigfoot Hunt

Parks and Wildlife Department Taken to Task for Greenlighting Sasquatch Slaughter:

AUSTIN – Today, the national nonprofit Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) is filing a lawsuit against the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, requesting judicial review of the agency’s May 2012 administrative finding that Bigfoot is an indigenous "nongame" species that can therefore be hunted without a permit. The Texas Administrative Procedures Act requires that administrative findings are "reasonably supported by substantial evidence." The suit alleges that the agency’s designation is arbitrary and capricious due to a lack of credible evidence supporting its conclusion that the elusive primate is indigenous to the state of Texas, and cites a preponderance of evidence that the man-beast is instead native to Northern California.

Why are Texans messing with the yeti? Tex. Parks & Wild. Code § 67.001 defines "nongame" species as animals who are indigenous to Texas, not endangered, and not otherwise listed in any other part of the code. According to expert declarations accompanying today’s lawsuit, the alleged evidence that Bigfoot is a Longhorn—mostly shaky, grainy videos of what appear to be humans in giant hairy ape costumes—cannot reasonably support the Department's finding. ALDF is also pursuing endangered species protections for the secretive simian, under Tex. Parks & Wild. Code § 68.00.

“Cryptozoological creatures like Bigfoot must not be deprived appropriate legal protections,” says ALDF attorney Chris Berry. “The lack of credible evidence that Bigfoot is indigenous to Texas sets a clear legal prohibition on Sasquatch hunts in the Lone Star State.”

ALDF was founded in 1979 with the unique mission of protecting the lives and advancing the interests of animals through the legal system. For more information, please visit aldf.org.