Public Comments Needed to Ban Wildlife Killing Contests

The Arizona Game and Fish Commission is accepting public comment on a proposed rule to ban wildlife killing contests and the commissioners need to hear from you! Please send a message letting them know you support this rule and that you would like to see it strengthened to close loopholes. Wildlife killing contests are unethical, wasteful, and devalue our wildlife, plus have no scientific or wildlife management role.

There are more than 20 wildlife killing contests held each year in Arizona. The participants join in the contest for a fee and then they spend the weekend killing as many animals as they can for a cash prize. The target species are usually one or more of the following animals; coyotes, bobcats, foxes and sometimes mountain lion, coati mundi, badgers, and jackrabbits. They get points for the different animals killed and the most animals killed and sometimes win other prizes. Frequently, the animals are dumped after the contest is over.

Please contact Game and Fish and support banning these killing contests. You can use the message we have provided, and if possible, add your own story and tell them why you care. You can also send your comments to:

E-mail: rulemaking@azgfd.gov

U.S. Mail: Arizona Game and Fish Department
Attn.: Rules Section
5000 W. Carefree Highway
Phoenix, AZ 85086

Sample Letter 

(Consider personalizing it for more impact.) 

I support the Arizona Game and Fish Commission rule to ban wildlife killing contests and encourage you to close loopholes in the rule to ensure that these contests are not lawful in Arizona.

These killing contest are not hunting, so banning them in no way infringes on the rights of hunters. The contests do promote wanton destruction of wildlife, provide no wildlife management tool, and have no basis in science.

Wildlife killing contests are a danger on our public lands - contests encourage many teams of people with guns and powerful spotting scopes to go out and kill a lot of animals in a short period of time in a particular area. This puts other people and domestic animals at risk if they happen to be out recreating in the area of the killing contests.

These contests can also put nontarget species of wildlife at risk. For example, an uncollared Mexican wolf might be mistaken for coyote in the rush to get the biggest and the most.

I encourage you to amend the rule to limit sponsorship of these contests and to include nongame wildlife and prairie dogs, so those organizing these wildlife killing contests do not merely switch their targets.

Please fulfill your public trust responsibilities to the people of Arizona relative to our wildlife and stop these killing contests now.

Thank you for your consideration.

- Sierra Club

MORE INFORMATION

A Death Of Ethics: Is Hunting Destroying Itself? - Mountain Journal 

Stop Congressional Attacks On Gray Wolves

Congress’ attacks on the Endangered Species Act and the struggling wildlife it protects continue to mount. Gray wolves desperately need your help!

WHY THIS MATTERS

The future of gray wolf recovery is in jeopardy, as Congress continues their attacks on the vulnerable wolves.

Last month, the House of Representatives passed HR 6874, a horrible anti-wolf bill that would severely undermine the Endangered Species Act, and your ability to defend wildlife in court.

The misleadingly named “Manage Our Wolves” Act strips Endangered Species protections from all gray wolves in the lower 48, handing their management over to hostile state wildlife agencies. It even limits your ability to hold wildlife agencies accountable in court, setting a dangerous precedent.

Now House Republicans are trying to add the text of the “Manage Our Wolves” act as a rider into the House’s must-pass spending bill. If they succeed, these attacks will become law, and gray wolf recovery would be devastated.

Members of Congress in both chambers can pressure their leadership to get this toxic anti-wildlife, anti-accountability rider removed. But we must demand it.

CLICK HERE to sign the following Sierra Club petition:

(Add a personal comment for even more impact.) 

I am deeply concerned by the current effort in Congress to push anti-wildlife legislation into law as "riders" on the FY 2019 Interior and Environment Minibus III spending bill currently being considered in the House. 

If Minibus III passes as-is, the riders would officially strip Endangered Species protections from gray wolves in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, double down on the delisting of Wyoming gray wolves, call for Interior to delist all gray wolves in the lower 48 and limit the public’s ability to seek judicial relief. 

Wolves have just begun to recover in some areas of the country. Since the effort to restore wolf populations began in 1980's, we have had some great successes, and we now have wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains and the Midwest. But it is too soon to remove wolves from the federal endangered species list, as several courts have confirmed. Continued federal protections are critical to securing the fragile recovery of existing wolf populations and allowing wolves to expand into other suitable habitats.

Any legislation that interferes with existing federal wolf protections would be harmful to wolf recovery in the United States. It would also undermine the Endangered Species Act (ESA), one of our most effective and important environmental laws. 

Ideological anti-environmental policy "riders" don’t belong in government spending bills. This set of irrelevant, unnecessary amendments would fast-track a series of horrible attacks on wildlife and undermine the power of the Endangered Species Act, one of the most effective pieces of legislation in our history. 

I urge you to push Congressional leadership to remove anti-wildlife riders from this spending bill, and uphold federal protections for wolves.

https://www.addup.org/campaigns/take-action-to-protect-wolves?promoid=7010Z0000027L0UQAU

- SierraRise 

CALL NOW: Congress advances a war on wolves

Congress is back at it with another damaging attack on Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves.

A new Senate Sportsmen’s bill, S. 1514, contains a damaging provision targeting gray wolves. This “War on Wolves” legislation would block federal protections for wolves in four states and allow them to be trophy hunted, trapped and otherwise killed.

Call your U.S. senators now and tell them that you OPPOSE S. 1514 and all other attacks on protections for gray wolves.

If this “War On Wolves” legislation passes out of Congress and is signed by President Trump, it would hand the fate of wolves in Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin over to states whose wolf management plans were ruled illegal under the Endangered Species Act. This damaging legislation would also strip citizens of the right to challenge these lethal Midwest programs in court. It would also block citizens’ rights to challenge the management of wolves in Wyoming, where wolves are currently subject to a hostile state management program that allows for unlimited shoot-on-sight killing of wolves across 85 percent of the state.

Wolves have just begun to recover in some areas of the continental United States after being nearly wiped out by centuries of ruthless hunting, trapping and poisoning. Despite fragile successes that have brought wolves back to the northern Rockies and the Midwest, they are still missing from a vast majority of their former range and are subject to mounting persecution even where they have been restored.

If anti-wolf members of Congress get their way, the result will be more dead wolves and a blow to the Endangered Species Act, our nation’s safety net for imperiled species.

We must stand up for wolves and the law that helped bring them back from the brink of extinction—the Endangered Species Act.

Please call your U.S. senators now and ask them to oppose S. 1514 and all other attacks on protections for gray wolves.

- Marjorie Mulhall, Lands,Wildlife,Oceans