Science-based wildlife conservation and the ability of anglers and hunters to pursue traditional and sustainable outdoor pursuits are under attack across the U.S. These assaults take various forms, including ballot initiatives, legislation, revisions of plans guiding state wildlife agencies, and attempts to bias the composition of (or eliminate altogether) the Boards and Commissions overseeing those agencies. Underlying all of them is an intent to cast aside the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation and manage wildlife according to the dictates of anti-hunting extremists and single-species advocates.
Arizona has already been a target for these groups. In 1994, Arizona voters approved Proposition 102, a ballot initiative spearheaded by the Animal Defense League of Arizona and other anti-hunting organizations. Proposition 102 banned widely-used traditional trapping practices on all public lands within the state. In 2018, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) mounted a ballot initiative campaign designed to stop all hunting of bobcats and mountain lions. Fortunately, that effort was derailed. The changing demographics of our state make Arizona a prime target, it is only a matter of time until we’re in the crosshairs once again. Addressing these threats through proactive strategies is the core purpose of Conserve and Protect Arizona.
On September 4, the House Natural Resources Committee sent oversight letters to 19 environmental organizations, including the Center for Biological Diversity, demanding answers about how they use federal fee-shifting laws to bill taxpayers for their legal costs after suing federal agencies. CBD is the same group currently suing Arizona over mountain lion hunting — meaning Arizona sportsmen may be paying for both sides of that fight.
In Colorado, two of Governor Polis’s Wildlife Commission appointees failed Senate confirmation this spring over qualification and animal-rights concerns — despite elk licenses alone bringing in $54 million a year for the agency hunters fund. In Washington, a two-year probe into its commission found open-meetings violations, though the governor stopped short of removing anyone. Same target, two states: control of the commissions that set seasons and quotas.
On August 7, the Center for Biological Diversity sued the Arizona Game and Fish Commission and Department in Maricopa County Superior Court, asking a judge to shut down mountain lion hunting statewide indefinitely — bypassing the Department’s own season-setting process entirely. The court dismissed the claim, but CBD has vowed to keep fighting, arguing the state’s $15 lion tag violates the public trust doctrine — a claim that could just as easily be applied to deer, elk, or any other tag sold in Arizona.
Oregon’s Initiative Petition 28, which would have banned virtually all hunting, fishing, trapping, and rodeo in the state, fell short of qualifying for the November ballot — the campaign submitted 142,784 signatures, but only 104,262 held up under verification, about 13,000 short of the requirement. This is the third such attempt in six years, and the closest one has come yet; the campaign’s own organizers have said they’re building support across multiple election cycles, so CPAZ doesn’t expect this to be the last attempt.
The advocates for the bans we have seen proliferate around the western United States have taken a “divide and conquer” strategy, focusing on species and methods of take that have a relatively small number of participants. This strategy was successfully used in Australia time after time as detailed in this article.
On the heels of defeat for the ill-fated attack on hunting in Colorado, extreme anti-hunting advocates are focusing once again on Arizona. Their opening attack is to petition the Arizona Game and Fish Commission to outlaw the use of dogs in hunting over a dozen species of animals including mountain lions, bears, rabbits, and squirrels. This is the same playbook that was used in Colorado – starting first with the commission using emotional and misleading arguments as well as anecdotes before moving their campaign to other venues such as the legislature and ballot box.
Extreme activists used deceptive tactics to try and undermine hunting in Colorado by defining any hunting as “trophy hunting” and then using that definition to outlaw all hunting for mountain lions or bobcats. Despite being significantly outspent, the sporting community nationwide rallied to soundly defeat Proposition 127 by 10 percentage points, or nearly 300,000 votes. Read more here and here.
