Raccoons, possums, beavers and nutria, take notice: mess with a crop or a crawfish pond and you’re fair game. A bill by a Lafayette Parish lawmaker that expands a farmer’s right to crop protection is sailing through the state Legislature.
House Bill 410 by Rep. Bobby Badon of Carencro broadens present law and allows farmers to target “nuisance quadrupeds” — aka varmits! — from a boat or vehicle any time of the day or night with no bag limit, so long as a .22 caliber rimfire rifle is the weapon used. Current law allows farmers to go after pesky animals that raid crops and bore into the banks of crawfish ponds. Badon’s bill expands the law to allow farmers to shoot from a truck or a boat. The bill received a unanimous 97-0 vote in the House and is now before the Senate Natural Resources Committee.