AZ Hunters Beware of the Trojan Horse

[Nummie]

This issue primarily affects hunters in AZ, but it could (or already has) become an issue in other states, as well.


AZ STATE SENATE COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
RANCHING FOR WILDLIFE PROPOSAL
THIS IS IMPORTANT TO HUNTERS

Representatives of Ranching For Wildlife will give a presentation to members of the committee regarding a proposal to create compensation to Arizona ranchers in the form of wildlife hunting permits, which could be marketed as private land hunts on their holdings. This proposal has been legislated in most western states and has resulted in reducing or even eliminating available permits for the general public! I’m told that in Utah alone, no bull elk permits exist for public draw, and are ONLY available through the private ranch hunting program! This proposal could also include leased state land!!!!

This measure has been identified as potentially much more damaging to public hunting than George Taulmann’s USO debacle, and I urge everyone to attend the meeting at the State capitol Senate building on Wednesday, January 26, at 1:30 pm., in room 109. The meeting is open to the public, and speakers can address the committee.

The AZ Game & Fish Department is not involved in the planning process regarding this proposal, and is publicly opposed to it. The department already is addressing the issues that this proposal is supposed to solve with its Landowner Relations program, instituted about 2 years ago. I will be attending this public meeting to find out more about who is proposing it, and why. I have a feeling that it could be a Trojan horse measure that would further diminish public hunts in favor of the rich by transferring wildlife management from Game & Fish to private individuals for monetary gain. In other words, this could very well be another attempt by a few to control the natural resources of this state that we, the public already own! Do you want this to happen?

You can help by writing your state senator and letting him or her know how you feel about the measure. This is definitely not the first time it has been attempted, but is probably the most organized effort to date.

Listed below are the senate committee members who will decide if this proposal goes any further. Please contact these individuals also and let them know how you feel about the measure.

Jake Flake, Chairman rancher (602) 926-5219 [email protected]

Rbt. Blendu, Vice-Chair broker (602) 926-5955 [email protected]

Marsha Arzberger rancher (602) 926-4321 [email protected]

Tim Bee printing (602) 926-5683 [email protected]

Rbt. Cannell ???? (602) 926-4139 [email protected]

Marilyn Jarrett retail (602) 926-5288 [email protected]

Rebecca Rios ???? (602) 926-5685 [email protected]

 

[ringer]

Good info. I read the first confidential proposal from this group and they want to include leased land and actually state that preventing hunter access to private and leased land will improve the wildlife! They also claim their big issue is damage to fences and overgrazing. So which is it? Seems we need to attend the meeting and push for them to get cow tags only if they aren't in it for the money. I bet that will go over like a fart in church. I will try to attend.

 

[feclnogn]

Welcome to New Mexico.

Now all you guys need is a Jennings type of bill.

 

[JohnSWA]

Thanks for posting Nummie! Let's get the word out!!!

 

[cjcj]

I talk to Robert Blendu all of the time ...I will give him a call this week..[after wed.]. maybe he can tell me where this is going.

 

[BuzzH]

cjcj,

I dont think anyone with more than two firing brain cells needs to talk to someone about where this is going.

This is just another rancher sponsored grab at public wildlife. Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado have similar programs and its proving to be a disaster for the average hunter. As stated above, in some areas a vast majority of available tags go to landowners to peddle to the highest bidder.

This is just another case of the commercialization of public wildlife and opportunities lost by the average hunter. If you have the $$$ you can hunt AZ every year, if you dont, you can sit on the side-lines and watch.

But, I'm sure despite the AZG&F publicly not supporting this issue it will pass. Hunters are too complacent and for some reason feel that welfare ranchers are entitled even more welfare with landowner tags. Never mind that they lease MY PUBLIC (at the expense of taxpayers through below cost fees) lands and trash the shit out of them. Plus, look at the above legislatures...at least 2/7 are ranchers, probably at least 2-3 others have ties with ranchers somehow.

Thats why I'm still of the belief that the State Governments should not have any control over the Management of Fish and Wildlife...the Game and Fish departments should be managed by the game and fish and not some jerkass legislature comprised of ranchers, real estate brokers, etc. etc. etc. What do they really know about proper wildlife management???? Apparently more than the professional people hired by the state to manage wildlife.

What a freaking joke. If the AZ residents think Taulmans lawsuit is bad...let this pass, and you'll think Taulman was a saint.

 

[MarvB]

Well I gotta agree with the Buzz man on part of this:

Thats why I'm still of the belief that the State Governments should not have any control over the Management of Fish and Wildlife...the Game and Fish departments should be managed by the game and fish and not some jerkass legislature comprised of ranchers, real estate brokers, etc. etc. etc. What do they really know about proper wildlife management???? Apparently more than the professional people hired by the state to manage wildlife.

Just like I posted below in the thread regarding the cancellation of the bison hunt....

We get the same crap EVERY year here in this foresaken state. Fish and Game will propose to add some anterless deer hunts to get the buck/doe ratios back into shape and change the overall herd numbers and dynamics. They will do heli counts, range reviews (always fun running plot points...ugh), etc., and then model the whole fuggin enchilada to get a target objective for the hunt. Then at the very last minute BAR NONE, the hunt will be cancelled because the "County Board of Supervisors" thinks that there might be a public outcry for shooting "girl deer"??????

So how much money is spent on this kind of "game management" and who ultimately benefits? Its not the herd, its not the range/habitat, its not the hunters...

Again the question is Why do we hire/pay for professional game management if we are not going to follow the management plans to begin with??

Just another smoke-n-mirrors form of bureaucracy IMHO....

 

[1_pointer]

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the CWMU program in UT, especially the ones that contain public land. Too many people don't mind waiting 10yrs to draw a CWMU permit then whack a decent animal. This program is fairly well supported in UT. For totally private land I have much less of an issue as I couldn't hunt there anyway...

 

[cjcj]

Buzz i don`t think you understand where i am coming from.....when i say where this is going ....I mean how do the Senate members Flake/Blendu etc. feel about it? will they push it forword? Will it pass? [those things] but if you think you already have the answers Why don`t you tell us how they will vote...will it move forword... Better yet why don`t you call them or would you rather guess?



Flake is from a ranching family [easy guess] ....Blendu is not....

 

[Nummie]

Flake is indeed from a ranching family in Snowflake, and he is the chairman of the committee. Marsha Arzberger is "retired" from ranching. I wonder if either of these members of the committee will recuse themselves from a vote to move this proposal forward???????

 

[danr55]

I spoke with Flake this morning. There is no way he is withdrawing from this issue. He is 150% behind land owner tags, but realizes that it will not pass until the two different Elk support groups get behind it. All the meeting on the 26th is about is hearing from Utah and how they are doing with land owner tags. (I use the term "ALL" because that's the term the he used) He also indicated that the biggest push for this comes from the Navajo tribe and Big Boquillas Ranch.

 

[cjcj]

Danr55... Whats in it for the Navajo`s ? They already control and issue tags. I`m curious as to how this would help/benefit them..

 

[danr55]

CJCJ, The Navajo own Big Boquillas ranch in Unit 10, most of Unit 10. They stand to gain a goodly portion of any land owner tags alotted. Given the quality of the bulls on that ranch, I think they would probably draw a premium price. It's all about $$. Flake said that there was a farmer in the Kingman area who was put out of business because the elk ate his crop of sweet corn. Said there were several ranchers who had itemized the losses they've incurred because of Elk damage. Further claimed that if there is no recourse for them in the form of land owner tags that there will be several lawsuits against the state for not controlling the elk herds.

He didn't seem interested in any arguements related to the rights or opportunities afforded hunters in Arizona. ONly in the idea of tags being made available to land owners. I don't hold much hope for stalling this thing for very long, but it's worth a try.

 

[BuzzH]

Well, sit back, do nothing, and watch your hunting opportunities fly out the window.

You think its tough to draw a bull tag in Unit ______(fill in the blank) you aint seen nothing yet...just sit there and let the landowners run you over.

I think the route to take on this one is to:

1. Fight any form of landowner tags as long as possible.
2. If the landowners are worried about elk eating their crops, give them all a couple COW permits each to take care of the problem...killing bulls takes one animal, killing cows takes one animal and controls the future populations.

If you cant see whats trying to be done here, you got the blinders on...these ranchers dont want to control the elk, they want to be able to control YOUR hunting. They want bull tags and they want a majority of the bull tags. They want to make a profit, they dont care about you, YOUR WILDLIFE, or anything else other than their greed.

Just as bad, if not worse, than Taulman.

Good luck, but I still think the complacency of the average hunter will cost them their ass on this one...but on the good side, at least the ranchers will be happy...laughing all the way to the bank peddling your public wildlife to the highest bidder. |oo

 

[JoseCuervo]

CJCJ, The Navajo own Big Boquillas ranch in Unit 10, most of Unit 10. They stand to gain a goodly portion of any land owner tags alotted. Given the quality of the bulls on that ranch, I think they would probably draw a premium price. It's all about $$.

I've located a source for New Mexico Elk tags.. Bull, Cow or either sex.. If any one is interested, drop me an email..

Hey DanR,
How come you support (and even pimp) landowner tags in New Mexico, but then pretend to be against the same in AZ?


Pretty funny how the AZ guys are all up in arms about USO, but with losing their tags to landowners, they "will check" with the legislators.....

Bye-Bye hunting opportunity for the common man in AZ.... hump

 

[Ithaca 37]

Keep in mind that many welfare ranchers overgraze the public land around their ranch so there's nothing for wildlife to eat, then when the elk come on their ranch looking for food the ranchers want to be compensated.

 

[ringer]

Gunner-Don't make ignorant statements about "all" Arizona hunters. Game and Fish just found out about this late last week and Nick got it on the forums this week and I bet we have at least 30 hunters in that little room to keep them honest. I support funding and helping ranchers who have real damage problems. I will never support a bunch of greedy owners who not only want to control bulls on their own land but on leased land as well. This keeps up and the huggers and hunters will be pushing a ballot initiative for open bid process on grazing leases and it will pass with 80% support. The last thing real ranchers here need is a bunch of pissed off hunters supporting a bunch of pissed off huggers to screw them out of business. Those tags won't be a drop compared to a competitive lease cost. As for the indians I thought they had a lot of public leased land in the Boquillas and I wouldn't support giving control of rattlesnakes to those greedy bastards. You think hunting here is expensive just try a trophy bull on the rez.

 

[cjcj]

Hey Gunner/Buzz/Ithaca are there any landowner tags in your state?

 

[1_pointer]

The open bid leases would only apply to state land, federal land leases could not be affected as the prices are set in DC.

 

[Nummie]

Trojan Horse Update

OK. I attended the committee meeting this afternoon. After some presentations and discussions on other subjects, they got to the "Ranchers For Wildlife" presentation. First, a speaker began the presentation with a video presentation that left a lot to be desired, and I'm sure impressed NOBODY. Then, representatives from the Navajo Tribe spoke about various issues related to the Big Boquillas Ranch and dancing around the issue of creating a program to compensate ranchers and other private landowners by giving them hunt permits to market for sale.

Layne Brandt (guide), then proceeded to plead the case by voicing various anecdotes related to game management, or lack there of. OK, now I'm really not convinced here.

Finally, a repesentative from the Arizona Cattlemens' Association tried to save the day by appealing to everyone to work together to solve the problems of damage to habitat, etc. This guy probably made the most sense to me. At least he acknowledged that for everyone to work together, three conditions must be satisfied. They are....
The solution must be good for, (ie; acceptable and workable)
1. The Game & Fish Department
2. Private ranch and large land owners
3. Hunters and sportsmen

What I took away from this presentation was;
A. The presentation was very UNorganized and didn't
impress anyone.
B. Hunters will fight with everything they have to keep this
ill-conceived plan to give away control of a very
precious natural resourse from ever becoming law.
C. The legislators are aware of the political hot potato that
is at their feet.
D. There really is a problem here that needs to be
addressed SOON by rational, cool-headed members of
the public, ranching interests, legislators, and the
Game & Fish Department to find solutions that
everyone can live with.
You can help now by contacting the people in my original post and asking them how you can help to find a solution. Senator Flake mentioned all the e-mails and calls he has received since Monday, and even read one of them. They need to know that cooler heads will prevail to help in fixing this problem.