By Arizona Sportsmen for Wildlife Conservation
The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) has now entered the Arizona ballot initiative process for the 2018 election cycle. Here is the link to their ballot initiative application.
Their goal with this action is to get Arizona voters to reject a century of sound scientific wildlife management from our Arizona Game & Fish Department biologists, and turn over the management of wild cats to the ballot box, with an emotion based, non-factual initiative.
What are the real goals of HSUS? Fundraising, first and foremost and ultimately, they want to eliminate all hunting in the United States of America.
They are adept at raising large amounts of money off the backs of unsuspecting donors, and Humane Watch has exposed many of their tactics. You can read about it at humanewatch.org.
The CEO and President of the HSUS, Wayne Pacelle was quoted in the spring of 2004 with this:
“We are going to use the ballot box and the democratic process to stop all hunting in the United States…We will take it species by species until all hunting is stopped in California. Then we will take it state by state.”
As the HSUS begins their fundraising efforts to set the stage for their signature gathering, sportsmen and women need to educate their family, friends and neighbors on what is really going on!
HSUS picks several “wild cats” they think need protection by the ballot box. Three of those species are federally protected with the Endangered Species Act and you can’t hunt them. One, the Canadian Lynx, does not even exist in Arizona, unless one of our winter visitors would give them a ride!
The other two, mountain lions and bobcats are not endangered and have been successfully managed by the Arizona Game & Fish Department for almost a century! Their populations are stable and in some areas of the state increasing! Click here for some facts on Mountain Lions in Arizona.
The HSUS targets some of their support based on stories from the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. They include one about a bobcat in Yellowstone, Cecil the Lion from Africa, and the “love of scary animals”.
You can read about them here if you’re interested.
https://azforwildlife.com/pellentesque-auctor-neque-nec-urna
https://azforwildlife.com/node/6293
https://azforwildlife.com/vestibulum-ante-ipsum-primis
On behalf of all Arizonans, the Arizona Game & Fish Department manages over 800 species of wildlife including mountain lion and bobcats. To remove the management of these cats from their purview, would not only disrupt the balance their wildlife managers seek on a daily basis, it would also have a negative impact on the other 798 + species they manage.
Sportsmen and women foot the bill for wildlife management in Arizona with their licenses and tag fees. In 1990, California voters turned their mountain lion management over to the ballot box. The result…California taxpayers now pay to kill depredating mountain lions. The California Fish and Game Department annually issues approximately 250 depredation tags to kill (manage) their mountain lions.
We aren’t interested in following California’s lead, so we need you to do three things:
- Do not sign a petition for this initiative.
- Do not make a contribution to HSUS, Arizonans for Wildlife or any other supporter of this initiative.
- Tell everyone you know what is going on!
Jim Unmacht
Executive Director