Pima County officials are asking the Arizona Game and Fish Department to cooperate with them in preventing members of the Predator Masters group from hunting coyotes and other predators on county lands.
The group, which is holding a convention in Tucson Thursday through Saturday, “in the past has conducted large-scale contest hunts for predators that generated significant public outcry,” wrote County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry in a letter sent Monday to Game and Fish director Larry Voyles. “Pima County is opposed to hunts of this type, especially on county park and open-space lands, and I am asking your agency’s cooperation in preventing such hunts on county conservation lands.”
Huckelberry, in outlining the county’s opposition, wrote that “The wanton slaughter of bobcats, coyotes, coati and other predator animals on these lands would be counter to the conservation mission set by the Board of Supervisors and the people of Pima County.”
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A Game and Fish Department spokesman said agency officials are working on a “prompt response” to the letter, but said it had to go through “appropriate review” before being issued.
A spokesman for Predator Masters declined to comment on Huckelberry’s letter and referred a reporter to a news release from the group.
The release said: “This is not a contest hunt of any sort. This is a three-evening convention. Members who have traveled to Tucson and choose to hunt while they are in Tucson do so of their own accord. Hunting is arranged privately between the attendees incidental to attending the convention.”
Opponents of Predator Masters activities said they are planning protests during the convention, which is being held at the International Wildlife Museum west of Tucson.
REASONS FOR OPPOSITION
Huckelberry’s letter to wildlife officials spelled out his reasons for seeking to block Predator Masters hunting on county land.
“While I realize hunting can be a key component of wildlife management and is often necessary to control some populations of wild animals, the intensive and indiscriminate killing in a small geographical area solely for purposes of competition is not a system or method of wildlife management,” he wrote. “Nor do I believe it is hunting the Game and Fish Commission would endorse. I would hope your agency would be opposed to this type of hunting in general and seek to prevent it on a statewide basis.”
Huckelberry added that “we will actively oppose access to our lands for this purpose.”
Kerry Baldwin, the county’s natural resources superintendent, acknowledged that it could be difficult to monitor access to the more than 200,000 acres of wildlands the county owns or manages through state and federal leases.
“Those lands are very spread out,” Baldwin said.
GAME AND FISH VIEW
Jim Paxon, a spokesman for Game and Fish Department director Voyles, said Tuesday that “We will answer Mr. Huckelberry’s request, and staff is working on that right now.”
The county could close county-owned lands to the predator hunters, Paxon said. But he questioned whether the county would have that authority on land it manages through the state and federal leases.
Paxon noted that “coyote hunting is legal, and there’s a year-long season. People need a valid hunting license.”
He took issue with Huckelberry’s use of the term “wanton slaughter” in the letter.
“We use tools (for managing wildlife) and one of those tools is the recreational hunter,” Paxon said. “We don’t consider this wanton slaughter by any means. We find it to be some folks getting together and chasing a particular species.”
