By Howard Fischer
Mail | X: @azcapmedia

PHOENIX — Calling it a threat to federally protected wildlife, an environmental group wants to ban the use of dogs for certain kinds of hunting.

In a new petition Monday, the Center for Biological Diversity said the way dogs are legally used in Arizona to pursue bear, mountain lion and other smaller animals, often in packs, can result in harms to ocelots and jaguars. It says even if they can escape injury by climbing trees, their lung capacity is outmatched by the dogs.

And Mexican gray wolves, they said, can’t escape up trees.
The request to the Arizona Department of Game and Fish also says dogs can put hikers and others at risk.

But if none of that works to convince the commissioners to alter the rules, the petitioners have something that, given the agency’s history, might get their attention.

They said the way hunters use technology to let dogs loose and then track them by satellite signals — versus actually staying within earshot of their dogs — is “unsporting and unethical.” That, the petition says, violates the commission’s own “fair chase doctrine,” described by the commission as “the ethical, sportsmanlike and lawful pursuit of taking free-range wildlife in a manner that does not give a hunter or an angler improper or unfair advantage.”

That’s not new. It’s what resulted in the commission banning the use of drones to locate wildlife they are hunting. Also banned in Arizona are trail cameras that can send images to assist hunters to find wildlife.

The rules also prohibit what are known as “smart rifles” that do not fire when the trigger is pulled but wait until a laser-supported sighting system decides the target is in its sites.

The petition submitted by Russ McSpadden and Colette Adkins of the Center for Biological Diversity say the same concerns about “fair chase” that led to those restrictions are present here.

In traditional hunting for wildlife such as bears and mountain lions, hunters find and identify tracks and send hounds to follow, a process that could take days of pursuit off of trails. Hunters would keep the dogs within earshot so they could know the progress.

What is happening now, they said, is the use of radio telemetry and GPS collars that allow the dogs to roam free, tracked by hunters at a distance on phones or other hand-held devices. Then when there are indications an animal has been spotted or cornered, the hunters can use their all-terrain vehicles to find the prey.

What they want, the pair is telling the commission, has precedent.

“Several states already prohibit the use of dogs while hunting bears and mountain lions as contrary to principles of ‘fair chase.’” they wrote. “Indeed, trophy hunters’ use of packs of dogs — often in conjunction with technology like GPS trackers and a network of satellites orbiting the Earth — to kill wildlife for little more than bragging rights is unsportsmanlike.”

The state already precludes the use of dogs to pursue certain other species that are legal to hunt, including deer, elk, bighorn sheep and javelina.
McSpadden and Adkins hope to force the commission to at least take a look at the issue — and soon.

They cite a state law that says any state agency, within 60 days of a petition to enact or amend a rule, must either reject the petition and state its reasons in writing or begin the process of making the rules.

What the commissioners now need to decide is how they figure what activities keep the act of hunting fair and where it crosses the line into unfair.

On one hand, the agency’s website says that new or improved technologies and practices “can provide benefits to hunters and anglers by improving competency or increasing participation.” But certain things, it says, cross the line.

One, for example, is allowing a hunter to take wildlife without acquiring the necessary skills or competency. Also over the line is any technology or practice “that makes harvesting wildlife almost certain” or it prevents the wildlife from eluding the hunter.

Then there’s something that may fit what is in the petition: technology or practice that allows a hunter to take wildlife “without being physically present and pursing wildlife in the field.”

None of this would apply to the use of dogs while hunting ducks and other birds.