AZGF will be back in to lawmaking in 2011

[bowhunter4life]

Hunt means Hunt. If I were pre-fishing for a tourney I would not be allowed TO leave buckets oF crawdads or shad to chum for a week prior to the tourney. WITH THAT SAID THINK

really?? Have you thought this through

 

What you are saying, it is also ok to ban baiting for fishing...

 

No More

 

No more CORN for all types of fish,

worms for all fishing,

minnows for crappie,

power bait for trout,

anchovies for stripers,

no catching shad for bass,

no more catching sunfish for flatheads,

no more stink baits for channel cats,

 

Where does it end...............

 

Have you seen all the talk from the non fishing ainti-groups, wanting to stop fishing? don't be fooled every time something is removed it is one step closer to being just a something we used to be able to do.

[billrquimby]

Hunt means Hunt. If I were pre-fishing for a tourney I would not be allowed TO leave buckets oF crawdads or shad to chum for a week prior to the tourney. WITH THAT SAID THINK

really?? Have you thought this through

 

What you are saying it is also ok to ban baiting for fishing...

 

No More

 

No more CORN for all types of fish,

worms for all fishing,

minnows for crappie,

power bait for trout,

anchovies for strippers,

no catching shad for bass,

no more catching sunfish for flatheads,

no more stink baits for channel cats,

 

Where does it end...............

 

 

Anchovies for strippers? Really?

 

Bill Quimby

[Outdoor Writer]

 

Anchovies for strippers? Really?

 

Bill Quimby

 

Most guys use dollar bills.

[tjhunt2]

 

Anchovies for strippers? Really?

 

Bill Quimby

 

Most guys use dollar bills.

 

That explains it! Now I know why some of the strippers smelled like anchovies.

 

TJ

[Coues 'n' Sheep]

 

Anchovies for strippers? Really?

 

Bill Quimby

 

Most guys use dollar bills.

 

That explains it! Now I know why some of the strippers smelled like anchovies.

 

TJ

 

All Right you old gutter rats.... back to the issue of Big brother and his big stack of rules.

[bwakeling]

Wow!

 

Check in once a week, and you may feel like you've entered a new discussion thread!

 

At the risk of following Coues and Sheep's direction and trying to find the fairway again, let me add a few more thoughts on baits, rulemaking, and other issues.

 

Right after my last post, a question was asked about what scientific data might the Commission consider during a rulemaking phase (which again, I must remind you, we are not in). To be fair, they also would consider this during a rule review, but no changes are made during this phase.

 

There are 3 types of risks associated with with placing bait on the ground for wildlife. The first is the chance for a ruminant animal (like a deer or an elk) to consume too much high protein feed and result in direct mortality. This has been documented many times throughout the country. For anyone with livestock, consider when your horse (not a ruminant) gets into the grain bin or if your prize bull (this is a ruminant) gets unrestricted access to grain. I have a friend that borrowed a neighbor's ram to breed his sheep, and while it was in his possession, the ram got into his chicken feed and ate too much grain. The ram (ruminant animal) died, and he had to explain that to his neighbor (plus I believe there was some financial restitution involved). The same thing can happen when wildife, living on relatively low quality feed, gains access to corn or some other grain. Ruminant animals have complex disgestive systems and they take a while to change diets; abrupt changes can be bad for them.

 

The second type of risk is for poisoning from other aspects of the feed. Aflatoxin is a primary concern. Apparently, feed provided to wildlife does not fall under the same scrutiny that livestock feeds are subjected to, because a study looking at wildlife feed in Texas (if memory serves) found that over half of the feed bags tested had unsafe levels of aflatoxin. This could not have been fed to livestock. The toxicity of aflatoxin tends to be greater for birds than for mammals, and even perfectly safe feed can develop unsafe levels of aflatoxin if it gets wet.

 

Finally, the increased risk of disease transmission is probably the best known concern. And while chronic wasting disease is perhaps the most oft cited concern, other diseases may be transmitted at concentration areas as well. Arizona does not have CWD at this time, but should it arrive, baiting may increase the rate of spread.

 

The benefits of baiting are certainly numerous. If you need a deer or turkey to come to a particular place so that you can shoot it, this approach can really help. In my opinion, this benefit doesn't outweigh the risks associated with it. Yes, the Department wants more people to be involved in hunting and fishing. Again, in my opinion, making harvesting a game animal easier is not the only way to increase hunter recruitment and retention.

 

Let me say again, I am not on the rule review team and the Commission is the decision making body on this issue. Should the moratorium on rulemaking get lifted, there will be more public debate on this topic before any decision is made. I appreciate this dialogue, and while I may not personally agree with some of the sentiments shared, this is exactly why our system works. At least better than it does in Libya.

 

Brian Wakeling

Game Branch Chief

Arizona Game and Fish Department

[DesertBull]

Texas, the state most famous for baiting, does not have CWD either. Colorado and ILL have very strict baiting laws, and many cases of CWD

 

The biggest disease risk to AZ elk, deer, antelope, sheep are pen raised wildlife like that joke of a place up at Williams. Yet, we allow them to import animals from CWD states.

 

Domesticated animals have a much lower tolerance regarding diet changes.

 

I would venture to say that 99% of hunters that place a bait here in AZ use cattle grade grain purchased from a local feed store.

 

 

 

It is not known exactly how CWD is spread from animal to animal. It is believed that the agent responsible for the disease may be spread both directly (animal-to-animal contact) and indirectly (soil or other surface to animal). It is known that transmission can occur between animals and that animals held in contaminated facilities can contract the disease. It is thought that the most common mode of transmission from an infected animal is via saliva, feces and urine.

 

We better outlaw bucks that make scrapes, chase and lick does, etc before all the deer are dead.

[Santana Outdoors]

This is posted on the Az game and fish website

 

Arizona's 7-core concepts of conservation:

 

1. Wildlife is held in the public trust;

2. Regulated commerce in wildlife;

3. Hunting and angling laws are created through

the public process;

4. Hunting and angling opportunities for all;

5. Hunters and anglers fund conservation;

6. Wildlife is an international resource;

7. Science is the basis for wildlife policy.

 

and their mission statement.

 

The Arizona Game and Fish Department Mission:

To conserve, enhance, and restore Arizona's diverse wildlife resources and habitats through aggressive protection and management programs, and to provide wildlife resources and safe watercraft and off-highway vehicle recreation for the enjoyment, appreciation, and use by present and future generations.

 

Mike (Bowhunter4life) asked a great question,

 

Can you explain what "benefits and challenges baiting" has specifically for AZ?

 

What documented, “risks in the scientific literature” that have been performed specifically for Arizona big game animals?

 

Brian (bwakeling) I think is what we need here is to see this information to be able to see what the Game and Fish see's to help us better understand why there is a potential rule of law being considered and how does it fit into the Mission statement and the Arizona's 7-core concepts of conservation. Is this already posted somewhere for us to review?

 

Thanks, Eric

[DesertBull]

Arizona's 7 (+1)-core concepts of conservation:

 

1. Wildlife is held in the public trust; (unless we find the antlers 1st, then we sell to the highest bidder)

2. Regulated commerce in wildlife;

3. Hunting and angling laws are created through

the public process; (but we do what we want, no matter what the public says)

4. Hunting and angling opportunities for all; (see rule 8)

5. Hunters and anglers fund conservation; (See rule 8)

6. Wildlife is an international resource;

7. Science is the basis for wildlife policy. (Trumped by rule 8)

8. Sell as many tags as possible. (when in doubt, refer to this rule)

[billrquimby]

"I always hear the old hunters talk about the good ol days when there were a lot of deer around. There's a difference between managing game and selling tags."

 

Don't know who you've been talking with, but there aren't many "timers" older than I who have hunted deer every year but one (when I couldn't draw a tag) in every corner of Arizona since 1948, and I am here to tell you that it was a lot harder to find deer in those so-called "good ol' days" than now.

 

We had a few places, such as the Chiricahuas, where whitetail numbers exploded and then crashed, but mostly we could go for an entire season seeing only one antlered buck, if any. Many very good hunters measured their success with bringing home a forked-horn every two or three years.

 

Hunters were happy with 12 percent to 16 percent hunter success. Success in some areas was even lower than that.

 

As for "sell as many tags as possible," this old timer says you are full of it. We had more than 100,000 deer hunters in 1969, the last year an unlimited number of deer tags were sold over the counter in this state. What happened after that was shameful.

 

The Arizona Senate Natural Resources Committee led by a senator from Globe, at the urging of just two influential ranchers (one from southern Arizona the other from the White Mountains), forced the Game and Fish Department to promise to drastically reduce hunter numbers in exchange for a department-wide pay raise.

 

There was no biological basis for this reduction, but the result was Arizona's and the West's first permit-only deer hunting system.

 

If AZGFD were guilty of only wanting to sell more tags with no regard to the health of our deer herd, it would not have cut over the next forty years some 60,000 tags from what had been its annual sales.

 

If Defenders of Wildlife, PETA or HSUS had told that many hunters they couldn't go deer hunting, I suspect you would be screaming a different tune.

 

Bill Quimby

[Coues 'n' Sheep]

This is posted on the Az game and fish website

 

Arizona's 7-core concepts of conservation:

 

1. Wildlife is held in the public trust;

2. Regulated commerce in wildlife;

3. Hunting and angling laws are created through

the public process;

4. Hunting and angling opportunities for all;

5. Hunters and anglers fund conservation;

6. Wildlife is an international resource;

7. Science is the basis for wildlife policy.

 

and their mission statement.

 

The Arizona Game and Fish Department Mission:

To conserve, enhance, and restore Arizona's diverse wildlife resources and habitats through aggressive protection and management programs, and to provide wildlife resources and safe watercraft and off-highway vehicle recreation for the enjoyment, appreciation, and use by present and future generations.

 

Mike (Bowhunter4life) asked a great question,

 

Can you explain what "benefits and challenges baiting" has specifically for AZ?

 

What documented, “risks in the scientific literature” that have been performed specifically for Arizona big game animals?

 

Brian (bwakeling) I think is what we need here is to see this information to be able to see what the Game and Fish see's to help us better understand why there is a potential rule of law being considered and how does it fit into the Mission statement and the Arizona's 7-core concepts of conservation. Is this already posted somewhere for us to review?

 

Thanks, Eric

 

Well put Eric.

 

I personally believe it is an issue of perception... someone perceives a problem and then we need a rule. People “feed” wildlife all across this state for many different reason: who doesn’t love to see critters form the front or back porch, wildlife watching, photography, hunting, ranching, farming, and so on… it is a byproduct of many things and all the animals of the ecosystem benefit from it. It can be argued that more deer are harvested off water sources than off of bait in an August hunt. Regardless of what makes a hunter successful it will make someone jealous or disapproving… As Mr. Q illustrated above it has always been a take, take relationship between the AZGF “management techniques” and the hunters…. And the hunters always lose, regardless of the intent. We may or may not see the rulemaking process this year but if we don’t, we can count on the next opportunity the proponents of this rule have they will put it up for 30 day review and try to pass it…. There is only one real reason to support a rule like this and that is if you don’t support hunter opportunity… because in the end it is just that, an attack on the women, children, and less physically able hunters who have the desire to be outdoors and share in hunting success. Baiting does not guarantee you success by any stretch of the imagination… if you have a hot doe tied to a tree in a place where bucks don’t come, you won’t see a buck… period. Most of the hunters that I speak with that have hunted over bait all say the same things… 50% say I shot my buck as he was passing by… and the other 50% say the buck stopped just long enough for me to take an ethical standing shot. Rutting bucks could truly care less about eating, they have for more primal thoughts than food in during the month of January.

 

Let’s face it… there are 50 reasons why archery hunters are more successful today than they were 10-15 years ago… should we make rules against every advancement in technique and equipment in the last decade??? No… lets be real, it is in the human nature to progress in abilities. There is nothing sinister being carried out by my fellow hunters who are feeding more squirrels and jays than deer… Nor by the hunter who sits where 4 trails come together or on a small seep… it is all just hunting. Mountain lions for example use every advantage they have to best these prey animals and since God did not give us the physical attributes of a big cat, he gave us problem solving skills… we are predators just the same. At 35 years old and of sound mind and body I don’t have to hunt any one particular way or use any one method but as I age my successes will fall off and I will have less chances at the perfect stalk… I sure hope that I still have quality hunting opportunity when I get to those days…. the animals will be on the mountain either way.

[Coach]

I'm not spoiling for a fight with Bill, and I sure can't say much about the "real" old days, but there was a time in the lat 80's when I had no idea what kind of coues potential certain areas held, but there were monster coues all over the middle part of the state with few guys hunting them. I've got pictures on my hard drive right now with a 107" buck next to a 117" buck taken from an area that I learned years later was full of deer of that caliber - and you could get a tag for coues back then over the counter.

 

Some buddies of mine used to hunt Cherry Creek from the Roosevelt side and would consistently take 100+ bucks with rifles, bows and optics far inferior to what we're using these days, and talk about the really HUGE bucks they saw but didn't get to take. The same guys hunting the same country with better equipment now have a hard time just finding a buck these days.

 

I have no doubt, knowing what I've learned in 20-some years of hunting in AZ, if I knew back in the late 80's what I know now, I could have been on huge deer every year.

 

The game changes - it challenges you every year. The hunters are getting better, the big bucks are getting smarter, things that work great one year don't work at all the next. That's what keeps us hooked. If it were easy, it wouldn't be so addictive.

 

 

As far as baiting, well, using salt or corn will work for a while. Then that too will become harder as the deer will adapt. Can AZGFD actually enforce a baiting rule? Probably not IMO. They're already spread too thin. If there is a baiting law passed, it will be a "self-enforcement" law. Which is pretty much what we've grown accustomed to.

[billrquimby]

"I'm not spoiling for a fight with Bill, and I sure can't say much about the "real" old days, but there was a time in the lat 80's when I had no idea what kind of coues potential certain areas held, but there were monster coues all over the middle part of the state with few guys hunting them. I've got pictures on my hard drive right now with a 107" buck next to a 117" buck taken from an area that I learned years later was full of deer of that caliber - and you could get a tag for coues back then over the counter."

 

Heck, I thought we were talking about the good ol' days. The 1980s were only 22 to 31 years ago. That's like yesterday. My grandkids were born in the 1980s.

 

Incidentally, you may be talking about tags left over after the drawings, which could be bought at AZGFD regional offices. The last year Arizona's deer tags were sold over the counter at sporting goods stores was 1969. Permit-only deer hunting began in 1970. To my knowledge there were few (if any) years in the 1980s when all of the permits authorized for Coues whitetails were not sold.

 

Bill Quimby

[ghost hunter]

I must have lived a charmed childhood. The 'good old days' seemed to be pretty good to me. While I didn't get a buck every year, it wasn't for lack of opportunity or trying. I shot at or had shooting opportunities more than I'd like to admit. What I do see as a difference between then and now are:

 

1) habitat loss- most of my best and favorite places are now "downtown" somewhere. People laugh when I tell them that I used to ride my bike through the neighborhood to go hunting. Of course people then didn't think twice about seeing a kid going down the street with a gun either. They'd usual stop and want to ask about your hunt.

 

2) access loss- used to be able to go just about anywhere. No locked gates anywhere and can't even think of someone who used to complain. Well I guess if you had tried hunting off their porch or shooting from their driveway, they might have said something.

 

3) hunter density- usually only saw 1 or 2 people and they NEVER tried to cut you out of your area. In fact, most would come and talk about which way you were going and they would go a different way.

 

4) the ability to hunt mulie or coues and hunt anywhere you wanted- after they started with the specific unit idea, it did keep people from "running to" the latest reported kill zone but I don't think it did anything for hunter density.

 

All in all, I do think the "good old days" were better than today, but that's just one guy's opinion.

[bowhunter4life]

The time is here, see below! Tomorrow and Saturday!

 

AZF&G Meetings tomorrow and Saturday.

http://azgfd.net/art... ... -7-8.shtml

 

 

 

Commission meeting to consider fishing regulations; raptor, reptile, amphibian, crustacean & mollusk regulations; and Notice of Proposed Rulemaking amending Article 3 (taking and handling of wildlife)

Sept. 5, 2012

 

 

The next meeting of the Arizona Game and Fish Commission will be this Friday and Saturday, Sept. 7 and 8, at the Game and Fish Department headquarters at 5000 W. Carefree Highway in Phoenix (1.5 miles west of I-17). The meeting begins at 8 a.m. both days.

Items on the Friday, Sept. 7 portion of the agenda include:

• Update on state and federal legislation.

• Presentation on a pilot project proposal to evaluate a landowner-departmental compact to manage public access.

• Request for approval of several Memoranda of Understanding with various entities.

• Request for approval of disposal of a portion of commission-owned sovereign lands located along the Gila River.

• Request for approval of a Notice of Docket Opening, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, and Economic Impact Statement amending rules within Article 3, addressing taking and handling of wildlife.

• Request for approval of Notices of Docket Opening, Notices of Proposed Rulemaking, and Economic Impact Statements amending rules within Article 7 (addressing Heritage Grants) and rules within Article 9 (addressing Arizona Wildlife Conservation Fund Grants).

• Request for approval of a Notice of Docket Opening, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, and Economic Impact Statement amending rules within Article 5, addressing boating and water sports.

• Hearings on license revocations for violations of Game and Fish codes and civil assessments for the illegal taking and/or possession of wildlife (time certain at 2 p.m.).

• Overview of the 2012 Commission Award nominees and request for the commission to vote to select the 2012 Commission Award recipients.

Items on the Saturday, Sept. 8 portion of the agenda include:

• Consideration of Commission Order 40 (Fish) establishing open seasons, open areas, closures, and bag and possession limits for 2013 and 2014. Click here to see the commission memo.

• Consideration of Commission Orders 25 (Raptors), 41 (Amphibians), 42 (Crustaceans and Mollusks), and 43 (Reptiles). The commission orders establish open areas, season dates, possession limits, and annual permit limits for 2013 and 2014. Click here for links to the proposed commission orders.

• Consent agenda items, including updates on various department programs and activities.

The public can view the meeting any of three ways: (1) attending the meeting in person in Phoenix; (2) viewing it via video stream at any of six Game and Fish regional offices; or, (3) viewing it over the Web at www.azgfd.gov/commissioncam.

 

Members of the public may submit Speaker Cards (Blue Cards) if they wish to speak to the commission at the Phoenix meeting or from any regional Game and Fish office. Public comment is not available for those viewing the webcast online.

 

The Arizona Game and Fish Commission is the policy-setting board overseeing the Arizona Game and Fish Department. It consists of five members (serving staggered five-year terms) appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate. No more than one commissioner may be from any one county. No more than three may be from the same political party. Since its inception in 1929, this organizational structure has served as a buffer for the best interests of science-driven wildlife conservation during eight decades of back-and-forth political change.

 

For a complete meeting agenda, visit www.azgfd.gov/commission(click on the Commission Agenda link).

 

 

The Arizona Game and Fish Department prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, age, or disability in its programs and activities. If anyone believes that they have been discriminated against in any of the AGFD’s programs or activities, including employment practices, they may file a complaint with the Director's Office, 5000 W. Carefree Highway, Phoenix, AZ 85086-5000, (602) 942-3000, or with the Fish and Wildlife Service, 4040 N. Fairfax Dr. Ste. 130, Arlington, VA 22203. Persons with a disability may request a reasonable accommodation or this document in an alternative format by contacting the Director's Office as listed above.

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