Arizona urged to ban the use of dog packs to hunt wildlife like mountain lions, bears, and foxes
The state currently allows trophy hunters to use packs of dogs on public lands to kill wildlife, which campaign groups say is needlessly cruel and also endangers non-target wildlife and hikers.
Campaigners are urging Arizona to ban hunters from using packs of dogs to hunt wildlife.
The state currently allows trophy hunters to use dog packs to hunt wildlife, with official figures showing that over 1,000 mountain lions and bears were killed by dog packs in Arizona in the last three years.
Now, a coalition of conservation groups have filed a petition calling for the Arizona Game and Fish Commission to ban the use of dog packs in recreational hunting.
“The science is clear, packs of hunting dogs let loose on public lands cause significant harm to native ecosystems and wildlife”, said Russ McSpadden, a spokesperson for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the petition’s signers. “Their prohibition in Arizona is long overdue.”
The use of dog packs to hunt wildlife has long been a contentious issue, with criticism over animal welfare and its risks to human safety. But there has also been concern from some of the hunting community too, as dog pack methods are said to violate the so-called “fair chase” ethics of hunting.
On public land in Arizona (pictured) it is legal to use packs of dogs to hunt wildlife.
According to conservation groups, hunters use GPS-collars on dogs to track wildlife for miles via smartphone apps and satellites, often from their vehicles.
This method, the groups say, undermines fair chase principles as well as Arizona and federal law.
“It's just common sense that hunting mountain lions with dog packs is not fair chase, a principle that has guided hunting practices for more than a century,” said R. Brent Lyles, executive director of the Mountain Lion Foundation.
Lyles says that mountain lions “deserve better” than being shot out of a tree after being cornered there by hounds wearing radio collars, and hopes the petition can offer Arizona a chance to implement fair and humane practices that “respect both the dignity of wildlife and the ethics of hunting”.
Because the hunting is allowed to take place on public lands, there are also fears that unsupervised packs of dogs could create hazards for humans and endangered hikers and other public lands users.
And in addition to the thousands of targeted animals killed by dog packs, there is also a risk of dogs inadvertently targeting other wildlife including federally protected animals like jaguars.
Mountain lions are among the animals hunted by dog packs.
The hunting dogs themselves are also at significant risk of harm, according to animal welfare experts. As part of the hunting process, dogs can suffer physical injuries or develop chronic health complications due to exhaustion, dehydration, and selective breeding. Some hunters have been known to purposely starve their hunting dogs to increase the animal's prey drive, and some hunters have abandoned dogs that underperform or become injured.
The Arizona petition is the latest to draw public and political attention onto state laws that permit brutal hunting methods.
Earlier this year a high-profile case of a US man tormenting and fatally shooting a young female wolf catapulted Wyoming’s state laws into the spotlight.
The horrific case of animal cruelty saw Wyoming resident Cody Roberts, 42, run down the wolf with a snowmobile, before parading the injured animal around a local bar and later killing the animal. He was fined just $250 over the incident.
But the case brought national awareness against the current laws in Wyoming which actually permit hunters to use snowmobiles to run over wolves and coyotes in a hunting technique commonly referred to as “wolf whacking”.
Use your voice to take action against cruel hunting methods like these now: join Species Unite in urging the Wyoming State Legislature to ban “wolf whacking” by signing our petition here.
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