Spring in the Valley is absolutely beautiful for nature lovers, hikers, photographers, and anyone cherishing encounters with our amazing desert diversity of flowering flora and spectacular fauna. I’m always thrilled to witness free-roaming wildlife including deer, bobcats, javalina, raptors, and reptiles. But, I’m acutely aware of dark sides to their existence in our harsh desert environment. Their struggle to survive is multilayered in their fragmented habitat — freeways, epic droughts, record heat, constant wildfires, hunts, leg-hold traps and other harassments like ATVs.
One of the most majestic of our wildlife is the Mountain lion, who rarely present danger to humans. They are secretive, twilight hunters feeding on sick, injured, and older ungulates, while keeping wildlife populations healthy. No one knows the actual mountain lion population in Arizona, but estimates suggest between 2,000-2,700. From that estimate, an average of 320 are killed yearly, according to Arizona Fish & Game’s (AZGFD) last five years of, so called, “harvest data.”
Arizona is among several Western states with small breeding Mountain lion populations attracting trophy hunters, who pay thousands for guided and canned hunts. Hunters also train tracking-hounds to tree their terrified prey before being shot. Though solitary, and presenting minimal danger to humans, Mountain lions are still pursued today, as in decades past. With great success, California is the exception, having banned the hunting and killing of mountain lions in 1990. Today, the remaining lions in western states are pursued primarily to obtain “trophy” animals. Online outfitters promise a ‘head’ for those willing to pay and enjoy hanging a dead carcass on their wall. In addition to mountain lions, bobcats and bear are also on the pursuit list.
Arizona Fish & Game (AZGFD) does many celebratory things for Arizona wildlife. They provide troughs in drought stricken areas specifically for wildlife, give informative lectures on wildlife, and rescue wild animals injured from a variety of causes. Poppy, a female lion, now living permanently at the Southwest Wildlife Center (SWC) in Scottsdale, is an example. Poppy’s mother had been treed and shot by trackers with dogs. Orphaned kittens only have a tiny chance of survivals they are dependent upon their mothers for the first 12-18 months for survival. Even by AZGFD’s data, orphaned kittens under 6 months old only have a 4% chance of survival. Remarkably, this starving kitten found her way to a farmer who turned her over to AZFGD, and then to SWC.
Given AZGFD’s often positive engagement with wildlife, I was surprised to see a phone number on their website for hunters to call should they be harassed by anti-hunters in the field. Unfortunately, the fleeing, terrified wildlife don’t have a similar hot line to plead that they have cubs or kittens to nurture. Bear, bobcat and mountain lion heads, only to be propped on a wall to satisfy someone’s ego, is not a legitimate reason to kill them. Because wildlife doesn’t have that option, only we can be their voice if we comment @ https://www.azgfd.com/agency/commission/members/contact-commissioner/. Now is the time to make trophy hunting a thing of bygone era in a more enlightened Arizona.
Janet Veves
Carefree
