VIEW LARGER Mountain lions can be cornered by hounds in crags and at the edge of rocky cliffs. A bill aimed at amending Arizona hunting law to enshrine the use of dogs for hunting, failed to pass in the Arizona House Representatives by a narrow margin, 30-28-2.
HB 2552 would have added language to current law by adding, “A person may take small game, predatory animals and fur-bearing animals with the aid of dogs at all times during which the taking of such wildlife is authorized by the [Arizona Game and Fish] Commission. A Person may take a bear or mountain lion with the aid of dogs during an open season for bear or mountain lion.”
Republican Rep. Lupe Diaz who introduced the bill said he wants to protect a lifestyle, during a House Land, Agriculture, and Rural Affairs (LARA) Committee hearing.
“I wanted to protect our dogs so that they can do what they’re bred for,” Diaz said.
He framed the legislation as a response to petitions filed last November, by conservation groups including the Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter, and Mountain Lion Federation.
The groups’ initial petition sought to ban the use of dog packs in recreational hunts for large mammals with the exception of bird hunting or animals preying on livestock, also arguing that using hounding poses risks to wildlife protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), public safety and hunting ethics.
AZPM reached out to Rep. Lupe Diaz’s office for comment but he did not respond.
“We created one petition on the practice of hounding, but it includes two rules so they asked us to resubmit as two separated petitions which re-triggered another 60 day window,” said Russ McSpadden, Southwest conservation advocate with the Center.
The groups are scheduled to present their case before the Commission on April 11, in Phoenix.
Republican Rep. Matt Gress moved to reconsider the bill which the House approved.
If that bill passes, McSpadden said, the Commission hearing would be moot.
However, Commissioner James Goughnour disagrees, noting that the bill would still need to pass through the Senate.
“This is a public process,” Goughnour said. “Until the petitions are actually presented to the Commission, no decisions are made, nobody has a mindset about where they are.”
Goughnour testified in support of the bill before the same House LARA hearing where Diaz introduced it stating, “The Commission supports this bill and Chairman Diaz we thank you for your conversations for your research on this topic. Everything that you’ve stated is exactly the way this Commissioner perceives what’s happening out there.”
However, he also pointed to specific language in the original version of the bill that the Commission still had questions about.
“My mind focused more on when they talked about small game and they talked about mountain lion and bear specifically,” Goughnour said.
Also in support of the bill were Arizona Game and Fish Department chief legislative liaison Ed Sanchez and legislative policy administrator David Fernandez.
The first version of the bill explicitly stated, “Rules adopted by the Commission shall not prohibit the use of dogs to take wildlife,’ before being amended.
McSpadden said the effect is the same regardless of the wording.
“The first attempt at the language was a blatant statement of intent,” he said.
Conservation groups argued that the bill would, “strip the state’s wildlife agency of its power to regulate the use of dog packs for hunting,” and “subvert state law by gutting the public’s right to petition on wildlife policy and hound hunting while circumventing public hearings and internal reviews.”
“Now the new language, what it does is it would enshrine hounding in Arizona state law and take it out of the Commission’s hands,” McSpadden said.
Michael Colaianni, spokesperson for Game and Fish said in an email that the bill, “would leave the commission with the ability to regulate hunting with dogs in these contexts but not to ‘ban’ the practice.”
Goughnour noted that this legislative session has seen an unusually high number of bills addressing issues relevant to Game and Fish.
“I look at the legislation from a perspective of, ‘Does this align with the mission of the department and the Commission or does it not align with it?’”.
He said that philosophically, HB2552 aligns with the current rule allowing hunting with dogs.
“In the past, Arizona Game and Fish looks at data in the field on various types of hunting, bow hunting, and the use of drones or the use of wildlife cameras and they can look at the science and look at the data and decide if certain tools no longer make sense in the modern context for hunting,” McSpadden said.
“We can hear from experts at the Game and Fish Department, these are biologists, these are data analysts, these are wildlife managers, these are people who are the specialists in these areas that spend their entire careers in the field monitoring these issues and making their positions so they will present their interpretation of the petition at some future Commission meeting and at that point the Commission may choose to take a vote on it or decide how to go forward or look at it later,” Goughnour said.
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