No, Californians Don't Need a Hunting Licence to Set a Mousetrap

This myth is one of the most persistent entries on 'weird law' listicle sites and has circulated widely online for over two decades. Its probable origin is California's SB 1645, passed in 2002 in response to concerns from animal protection groups about the handling of wildlife — such as foxes, skunks, opossums, and raccoons — by for-profit 'nuisance control' trappers. That law required professional exterminators and wildlife control operators to pass competency exams and obtain a trapping licence (not a hunting licence) from the state Department of Fish and Game. Somewhere along the chain of telephone-game internet sharing, 'trapping licence for professional wildlife trappers' became 'hunting licence required for everyone with a mousetrap.' The myth is doubly wrong: first, it's a trapping licence, not a hunting licence; second, it applies only to commercial professionals and explicitly not to ordinary residents. To compound the irony, California law not only permits residents to trap mice without any licence — it legally requires them to exterminate rodents once an infestation is discovered. Even professional pest controllers using standard snap traps for mice are separately exempted from the trapping licence scheme. Mice are so thoroughly carved out of California's trapping framework that the Department of Fish and Wildlife does not even require homeowners to register their mousetraps — an exception to the general rule that all traps be marked with an identifying number.