AGFD accused of "game farming" for bighorns

[audsley]

From today's Arizona Daily Star:

 

Killing lions to save sheep faulted

 

 

By Tony Davis

Arizona Daily Star

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 06.22.2009

 

 

The Kofa National Wildlife refuge, 665,000 acres of rugged mountains and desert plains in Western Arizona, made a national environmental group's top 10 list of imperiled wildlife refuges for this year.

 

Charging that the Kofa is being run as a game farm, the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility said in its new report that the refuge is managed to help desert bighorn sheep at the expense of other species, particularly mountain lions.

 

But since so many other refuges on PEER's list are troubled by climate change, urban sprawl and other outside influences, the Kofa "seems oddly out of place" on this list, said Mitch Ellis, project leader for a complex of Southwestern Arizona wildlife refuges, including the Kofa.

 

"At the Kofa it's a little bit more complex" than other refuges on this list, Ellis said on Friday. "It's a bit of scientific controversy on the best way to manage the refuge."

 

The environmental group singled out two particular actions:

 

• The capturing and killing of two mountain lions living on the refuge by the Arizona Game and Fish Department out of concern that the lions were contributing to a serious decline in sheep populations there. Public concerns about those killings — which occurred off the refuge — led to a one-year moratorium on lion shootings in that area. It recently was extended until the end of July.

 

The Wildlife Service's draft plan calls for killing mountain lions known to be eating sheep if sheep populations fall below or stay below certain levels. This plan is under review by service officials in Washington, D.C. A draft environmental analysis of the plan is due for release by the end of July.

 

• The construction of two concrete watering troughs, 2 feet wide by 4 feet long by 4 feet deep, for bighorn sheep and other wildlife within federally proclaimed wilderness areas on the refuge back in 2007. The Arizona Wilderness Coalition has filed suit on the grounds that these projects violated the Wilderness Act and the National Environmental Policy Act by putting man-made structures in a protected area.

 

A federal district court upheld the service's action. Environmentalists have appealed that ruling to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

 

"The Kofa is being run as a bighorn game farm, with state and federal agencies doing everything they can to 'grow' more sheep," said Daniel Patterrson, PEER's Southwest director. "We will be working to make the moratorium on cougar eradication permanent."

 

The refuge is trying to conserve sheep — the driving force behind the refuge's formation in 1939 — but not at other species' expense, Ellis said.

 

"We do anticipate there will be some differences of opinion on how we manage sheep and lions on the Kofa," Ellis said. "There's a balance we have to make between a hands-off wilderness stewardship approach versus wildlife management. It gets very sticky."

 

Contact reporter Tony Davis at 806-7746 or tdavis@azstarnet

 

Link to the article and readers comments http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/298025

 

Link to AGFD website that provides the other side of the story, which is quite different from what you're hearing from the mainstream press.

http://www.azgfd.gov/w_c/bhsheep/index.shtml

__________________

LJA

[Gr8 White Jr]

A bighorn game farm??? Its called wildlife CONSERVATION wich includes management of predators! Is AZGFD supposed to just sit back and let the lions wipe out the bighorn sheep? There has to be a balance kept. This is rediculous!

 

-Tracy

[IHunt2live]

Thats what most enviromental groups want, just sit back and let nature do its thing. Well, we are a part of nature and we have hudge impacts on our natural resources and we can't just sit back and let things take it course.

[audsley]

The principal problem, as I see it, is that the mainstream media has become press secretaries for the greens.

 

Tony Davis of the Arizona Daily Star and Arthur Rotstein of the Associated Press are loyal to the green cause and actively promote the green agenda at every opportunity.

 

Note Mitch Ellis's puzzlement over how a "problem" like this could make the nation's top 10 list when the problems on the other refuges are so serious. The answer is that putting an end to predator hunting is high on the green agenda.

[TexasHunter]

The principal problem, as I see it, is that the mainstream media has become press secretaries for the greens.

 

Tony Davis of the Arizona Daily Star and Arthur Rotstein of the Associated Press are loyal to the green cause and actively promote the green agenda at every opportunity.

 

Note Mitch Ellis's puzzlement over how a "problem" like this could make the nation's top 10 list when the problems on the other refuges are so serious. The answer is that putting an end to predator hunting is high on the green agenda.

The key words making the cougar moritirium permenant.

[yumabowhunter]

I was born and grew up in Yuma, which is 45 minutes from the heart fo the Kofa wildlife refuge. I cut my teeth hunting the Kofas. When I was a kid I can remember seeing sheep everywhere. Now, you are lucky to find a sheep. Until 8 years ago there were NO lions in the Kofas, coincidentally that is when the sheep herd was flurishing. As soon as the lions moved in the sheep started to dwindle.

 

It is not only the sheep suffering, the deer herd has been desimated to almost nothing.

 

I have quit hunting the Kofas the last couple of years. I continue to put game cameras out and not surprinsing lions are frequently on my pictures. It is INFURIATING!

 

The Game and Fish and US Fish and Wildlife have really screwed up on this one! If they do not do something quickly the deer and sheep herds in the Kofas will be beyond repair. It kills me to say that because this area of the state has proven that it can produce record quaility deer and sheep.

 

The problem is I highly doubt anything will change in the near future. The new director of the refuge is as green as they come! They care more about the lion thriving than anything else.

 

I didnt intend for this to be such a long rant. Just wanted to provide some truth to the matter.

[dogman68]

I hate to tell you guys, but they have sent someone in there. Probably one of the most knowledgeable guys there is in the country on snaring lions. He spent 23 days hiking and looking before finding his FIRST lion track in the Kofa's. He has snared over 225 lions in two years so I think he knows what he is looking for and doing. In his opinion, the lions, what few there are, are not the problem. Maybe it would be an advantage for the sheep if we quit blaming lions for everything negative that happens in Arizona and determine what some of the other factors might be. Just a thought.

No doubt lions do take sheep; no one would argue that fact. But giving the impression that the Kofa's are over run by lions is misleading. You mean to say that suddenly all these lions just moved in from somewhere??????? Like where? I'm really curious and interested.

[bobbyo]

Kind of ironic. The AGFD is accused of being game farmers? Well they must be the worst game farmers in the world. Aren't you suppose to increase your breeding stock when you have a farm.

[loco4coues]

[hunter4life]

Interesting post Dogman68. I think lions get blamed far too often when they are not the real problem. I have hunted lions a bit over the past 6 years and what I have found is that they are in the same spots that are good for deer hunting and those spots tend to be good for both deer and lions year after year.

[TexasHunter]

Kind of ironic. The AGFD is accused of being game farmers? Well they must be the worst game farmers in the world. Aren't you suppose to increase your breeding stock when you have a farm.

:lol:

[audsley]

Dogman68,

 

I think the issue about lions in the Kofa is this: The Kofa sheep herd is declining for one or more reasons, and regardless of what other problems they may be having, they don't need to be suffering from lion predation too.

 

I believe AGFD and USFWS are working to find out if there are any other problems such as disease. In the meantime, they need to be controlling the one thing they can control to some extent: predation.

 

My reason for posting the story is to illustrate the difficulty of managing wildlife in the current social and political environment. Stories like these don't bother to tell you that the Kofa Wildlife Refuge was established mainly for the purpose of preserving sheep habitat. It was not established to protect lion habitat.

 

Speaking of lions, you ask where the lions would be coming from. One of the basic facts about mountain lions is that their young usually need to leave the area where they were born and find new territory. Mothers run them off when they're ready to breed again, and older males don't tolerate younger lions, especially younger males. Young lions wander until they either find some territory to claim or get killed by an older lion. No doubt lions have wandered into the Kofas and stayed there.

 

The interesting thing about mountain lions right now is that concurrent with all the hysteria about protecting them, lions are actually expanding their range while the desert bighorn is struggling to maintain viable populations within a limited portion of its historic range.

 

It doesn't take many lions to make a dent in a sheep population that is already spiraling downward. The best approach would be to get all the lions out of there, continue investigating for other possible causes of population decline, establish a few food plots in particularly dry years (that's right, farming for sheep, there's nothing wrong with that when the population is dropping toward dangerous levels) and let them recover to 1,000 sheep.

 

Under the arrangement USFWS has now, I believe they can only take lions that are known to have taken more than one sheep in a specified period of time. This is ridiculous, but it's done to appease the animal protection lobby, which doesn't know the first thing about wildlife.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mattys281]

Interesting post Dogman68. I think lions get blamed far too often when they are not the real problem. I have hunted lions a bit over the past 6 years and what I have found is that they are in the same spots that are good for deer hunting and those spots tend to be good for both deer and lions year after year.

 

+1

I'm no biologist, but it seems logical to me that when you live in a desert environment that goes through cyclic weather patterns which include prolonged periods of drought, you're going to see severe swings in animal populations, both predator & prey. It's only based on 18 years of hiking & hunting in this state, but my observation is that the rapid explosion of the 2-legged predator population & the housing developments they live in that has caused the deer, sheep & pronghorns the majority of their troubles, much more so than lions.