New Mexico hunters and trappers killing every bear and lion they can

mis2810

Well Known Member
THAT'S DISGUSTING! My BIL is one of those stupid hunters that'll shoot anything that moves. I HATE THEM!!!
 

jerry

Well Known Member
I know there are responsible hunters and trappers...I know a few but the majority are just idiots.I have the bullet holes in my barn to prove it.One shot my metal gorilla sculpture by my ranch house last year...claimed it looked like a doe from his view...proud he hit it
 

audsley

Well Known Member
Jerry, did he have a tag for a doe?

Reason I'm asking is that Az Game and Fish hasn't issued any doe tags to the general public in several decades. Someone who explains shooting a sculpture thinking it was a doe is confessing to intending to commit a crime. Most likely he was simply lying to you, and you should have called it in to the sheriff's department.

Seems whenever somebody with a gun commits vandalism, people want to say it was a hunter. Haven't you noticed there are a lot of people who just want to go out into the desert and shoot at things?

You say the majority of hunters are idiots. Unless you know of some formal study measuring the I.Q.'s of hunters, you're evidently basing your sweeping assessment on personal experience. One's perspective tends to be influenced by the members of any group one is exposed to. The hunters I know are businessmen, engineers, lawyers, judges, teachers, biologists, building contractors and otherwise gainfully employed people who do not turn into morons when they go into the mountains and deserts. If I just went by the ones I know, I'd have to conclude that hunters are smarter, wealthier and more responsible than the average person. Of course, I know better. And I'm sure my perspective would be different if I were mainly exposed to the people who roam the back roads of Cochise County with guns looking for stuff to shoot at. The social data (school performance, crime rates and other metrics for social and economic well-being) for Cochise would not lead one to expect particularly dignified conduct among its citizens when they think no one is watching. I know this because I once got sick enough of listening to ranchers complain about those slob hunters from the city that I took the trouble to pull up data on Graham, Cochise and Santa Cruz counties. The stats suggested that a fairly high level of shot up signs, thievery and vandalism should be expected just based on who's living there. SE Az ranchers don't have to look to the cities to bring in bad actors. They're growing them at home.

Also recognize that responsible shooters and hunters go largely unnoticed while screw-ups leave evidence they've been around.

Philospher Eric Hoffer put it this way: "There is a tendency to judge a race, a naton or any distinct group by its least worthy members." Unless you have some means of measuring the behavior and character of hunters are a whole, you're simply giving us a read on who you're living among.

I'm not usually one for rants and raves, but this subject is a pretty sore point with me.
 
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jerry

Well Known Member
Jerry, did he have a tag for a doe?

Reason I'm asking is that Az Game and Fish hasn't issued any doe tags to the general public in several decades. Someone who explains shooting a sculpture thinking it was a doe is confessing to intending to commit a crime. Most likely he was simply lying to you, and you should have called it in to the sheriff's department.

Seems whenever somebody with a gun commits vandalism, people want to say it was a hunter. Haven't you noticed there are a lot of people who just want to go out into the desert and shoot at things?

You say the majority of hunters are idiots. Unless you know of some formal study measuring the I.Q.'s of hunters, you're evidently basing your sweeping assessment on personal experience. One's perspective tends to be influenced by the members of any group one is exposed to. The hunters I know are businessmen, engineers, lawyers, judges, teachers, biologists, building contractors and otherwise gainfully employed people who do not turn into morons when they go into the mountains and deserts. If I just went by the ones I know, I'd have to conclude that hunters are smarter, wealthier and more responsible than the average person. Of course, I know better. And I'm sure my perspective would be different if I were mainly exposed to the people who roam the back roads of Cochise County with guns looking for stuff to shoot at. The social data (school performance, crime rates and other metrics for social and economic well-being) for Cochise would not lead one to expect particularly dignified conduct among its citizens when they think no one is watching. I know this because I once got sick enough of listening to ranchers complain about those slob hunters from the city that I took the trouble to pull up data on Graham, Cochise and Santa Cruz counties. The stats suggested that a fairly high level of shot up signs, thievery and vandalism should be expected just based on who's living there. SE Az ranchers don't have to look to the cities to bring in bad actors. They're growing them at home.

Also recognize that responsible shooters and hunters go largely unnoticed while screw-ups leave evidence they've been around.

Philospher Eric Hoffer put it this way: "There is a tendency to judge a race, a naton or any distinct group by its least worthy members." Unless you have some means of measuring the behavior and character of hunters are a whole, you're simply giving us a read on who you're living among.

I'm not usually one for rants and raves, but this subject is a pretty sore point with me.
 

jerry

Well Known Member
You state you position well and as I said I have a few guys that I let hunt. in 29 http://www.azgfd.gov/h_f/hunting_units_29.shtml
We get the best and the worst..late draws that have no idea how steep it is and that they will run into the Klumps (google them and cochise county hunting) so it all ends up with the big sections being off limits to your average hunter creating more interaction with guys like me.The kid who shot my Gorrilla ( I am a pretty bad welder so it sort of had a boney looking skull) was hunting on a type of junior permit.From the wash he came out of at sunrise it might have looked like a deer I guess. My experience is first hand and evolves me coming up to campsites and telling armed men to leave if they came without asking.It does not go well sometimes after beer o'clock.
 

Roberto

Well Known Member
. My experience is first hand and evolves me coming up to campsites and telling armed men to leave if they came without asking.It does not go well sometimes after beer o'clock.
I read somewhere that percentage wise more game wardens are shot than police. Makes sense as everyone is armed and alcohol is part of a lot of hunters fun. So Jerry, keep your head down.
 

mis2810

Well Known Member
Jerry, did he have a tag for a doe?

Reason I'm asking is that Az Game and Fish hasn't issued any doe tags to the general public in several decades. Someone who explains shooting a sculpture thinking it was a doe is confessing to intending to commit a crime. Most likely he was simply lying to you, and you should have called it in to the sheriff's department.

Seems whenever somebody with a gun commits vandalism, people want to say it was a hunter. Haven't you noticed there are a lot of people who just want to go out into the desert and shoot at things?

You say the majority of hunters are idiots. Unless you know of some formal study measuring the I.Q.'s of hunters, you're evidently basing your sweeping assessment on personal experience. One's perspective tends to be influenced by the members of any group one is exposed to. The hunters I know are businessmen, engineers, lawyers, judges, teachers, biologists, building contractors and otherwise gainfully employed people who do not turn into morons when they go into the mountains and deserts. If I just went by the ones I know, I'd have to conclude that hunters are smarter, wealthier and more responsible than the average person. Of course, I know better. And I'm sure my perspective would be different if I were mainly exposed to the people who roam the back roads of Cochise County with guns looking for stuff to shoot at. The social data (school performance, crime rates and other metrics for social and economic well-being) for Cochise would not lead one to expect particularly dignified conduct among its citizens when they think no one is watching. I know this because I once got sick enough of listening to ranchers complain about those slob hunters from the city that I took the trouble to pull up data on Graham, Cochise and Santa Cruz counties. The stats suggested that a fairly high level of shot up signs, thievery and vandalism should be expected just based on who's living there. SE Az ranchers don't have to look to the cities to bring in bad actors. They're growing them at home.

Also recognize that responsible shooters and hunters go largely unnoticed while screw-ups leave evidence they've been around.

Philospher Eric Hoffer put it this way: "There is a tendency to judge a race, a naton or any distinct group by its least worthy members." Unless you have some means of measuring the behavior and character of hunters are a whole, you're simply giving us a read on who you're living among.

I'm not usually one for rants and raves, but this subject is a pretty sore point with me.
You're right - they may not all be idiots, but they're definitely overcompensating for a shortage in another department!!!!! I don't care that I have no statistics to back that up either!
 

jerry

Well Known Member
Hunters like our forum friend Don and family are great sportsmen.Likewise trappers like Ted's brother in New Mexico do things right.I am not crazy about either hunting or trapping management by Game and Fish. They Are giving out too many permits,focusing on trophy hunting( like the BS introduction of Sheep in the Catalina's and the following slaughter of lions for being lions and not including environmentalists in the discussion.
 

Kenny

Well Known Member
A very good friend of mine, a hunter and a native of New Mexico hooked up with a guide service up in Northern New Mexico because it pay's so well to babysit the "upper class" hunters of today. He had to quit and leave the $ behind because it wasn't hunting, it was just setting up these big shot city boy's for a kill. Yes, there's a difference between hunting and killing, a BIG one.
 

audsley

Well Known Member
OK, I'm back after spending several hours trying to get radio signals from sheep collars in the Catalinas. More about that later.

To Kenny, I will admit that some people I know do go on guided hunts out of state, but most of my friends do not, and I don't know anyone who hires a guide to hunt in Arizona, even for sheep. It isn't necessary. More important, we're fanatical warriors against over-commercialization of hunting, including landowner tags in Arizona. For the most part, the Az Game & Fish Commissioners we've had over the years have supported us in this. Unlike New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and some other Western states, Arizona does not have a lot of large private ranches that can use hunting opportunity to leverage landowner tags from the state, but they can deny access to any except the clients of outfitters they've contracted with and get tens of thousands of dollars each year from deep-pocketed out-of-state hunters. The O.R.O. up in your neck of the woods (a ways north of you around Anvil Rock Rd) is one of the major exceptions. This amounts to selling the state's wildlife, which is wrong because free-ranging wildlife should belong to the people of Arizona, and it does under current statute. And some ranchers who lease most of their grazing land from the US govt. happen to own small parcels where they can put up gates and deny the public access to state and federal lands beyond. In Cochise County, for example, people have climbed over the gate leading into John Long Canyon thinking their several-mile hike up the forest service road will be rewarded with an under-hunted whitetail area, only to find a bunch of campers and trailers occupied by the clients of the an outfitter who has an arrangement with the landowner who put up the gate. This is federal land, and the wildlife belongs to the people, but in order to enjoy what's yours you must first pay the guy running the toll gate operation. Much or all of the Winchester, Santa Teresa, Peloncillo and Swisshelm Mountains have become the private preserves or pay-to-play areas for landowners who pay no more taxes on it than the rest of us but are able to block motorized access. Try visiting the Geronimo surrender site in the Chiricahuas, on Coronado Natl. Forest land, and see how many doors you have to knock on to get through gates, and how many will let you through. The solution, of course, is for the federal govt. to buy right-of-way from willing sellers, but funding for that sort of thing seldom makes it through the budget process. At the county level, where responsibility lies for providing road access to the boundaries of federal lands, politicians couldn't care less about the public's right to get into the national forest, don't want to ruffle local feathers and are glad to accept exclusive access from landowners as a favor. Even the Klumps, who Jerry mentioned, have been known to grant access to at least one politician I know of.

Since the Az Constitution doesn't mention wildlife, all governance is under statute, which means we have to tread somewhat lightly around this issue given that the ranching community has far more clout around the state capitol than Arizona's sportsmen. In the meantime, many of the ranchers who do allow access are receiving a lot sportsmen's dollars in exchange for experiencing some inconveniences and for not being jerks.

If I ever meet up with you guys in person, over some beers I'll name names of govt. officials who benefit from the current situation. That assumes, of course, that you'd even want to get me started on these topics.

As for the sheep thing, Jerry you should know that Game & Fish and Az Desert Bighorn Sheep Society put together an advisory council comprised of all interested environmental groups, and the reintroduction plan and ground rules reflect what they and the environmentalists agreed upon. The green groups were Center for Biological Diversity, Sky Island Alliance, The Az Wilderness Coalition and Az Wilderness Society. To my great surprise, the environmentalists have actually become strong supporters of the reintroduction effort, although they're taking major heat from some of their financial donors and members who don't know the details of the project. As you've seen, lions are eating the sheep at a record pace, and it remains to be seen whether the reintroduction is a folly, but if nothing else a great deal is being learned here, including the fact that hunters and environmentalists can actually work together, something I wouldn't have predicted.
 

jerry

Well Known Member
And MIS2810, I've gotta ask: What's a BIL?[/quot. Brother in law. No Game and Fish fan here....they handled ever cat or bear issue I know about by shooting the animals......what they have done to the Lions in Arrivipa
OK, I'm back after spending several hours trying to get radio signals from sheep collars in the Catalinas. More about that later.

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/column/steller-in-aravaipa-canyon-lions-killed-for-bighorns/article_ea37ccf3-8007-5d02-991c-007959f3f103.html
The killing in Arivaipa,the Jaguar trapping and just seeing them in action by my place leaves a bad taste in my mouth.If you call G&F a animal ends up dead. The cult by my ranch bought a canyon called Bear Springs.They set up a retreat back there and after bears came to eat the offerings the cult put out for some bullshit cult reason G&F was called and killed the bears.

I have mixed feeling about the big ranches (the kings game preserves) and the huge conservation ranches Joe Austin is buying up around Turkey Creek and to the north..No one gets in.It just makes it hard for a hunter to do the right thing...trouble then follows.After your 80 year old windmill gets shot up a few times by locked out hunters you just start getting pissed.
The New Mexico story is just an outrage.[/quote]
 
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mis2810

Well Known Member
And MIS2810, I've gotta ask: What's a BIL?
Brother-in-law. Spends his entire life monitoring his web cams for deer, scouting, shooting at anything that moves. Obsession to the point of ignoring his wife and children. His whole family and all his friends are the same way. Live and breathe hunting anything. The house looks like a zoo graveyard.
 

Kenny

Well Known Member
Hunters like our forum friend Don and family are great sportsmen.Likewise trappers like Ted's brother in New Mexico do things right.I am not crazy about either hunting or trapping management by Game and Fish. They Are giving out too many permits,focusing on trophy hunting( like the BS introduction of Sheep in the Catalina's and the following slaughter of lions for being lions and not including environmentalists in the discussion.
I watched a hour long show the other night about a guy who went along on a tagging mission of a big cat in the relocation zone. After netting and putting a collar on the big cat with the sole purpose to see if he was killing sheep, he was as good as dead. They were alerted that he had made a kill and went in to see what it had killed and were relieved to find it was a deer, this time. http://azstarnet.com/news/local/mt-lion-blamed-for-death-of-th-bighorn-in-catalinas/article_4f8f6ee1-a0f4-53fa-9e8a-dd180273f17a.html
EDIT..
Just woke up and right off remembered they didn't net the big cat, they netted the Sheep. They put dogs on the cat and they had him surrounded on open ground, not treed as there were none. A very dangerous situation to be sure but after pulling the dogs back some they darted him successfully.
 
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dirtsurfer

Well Known Member
Forum Supporter
Jerry, did he have a tag for a doe?

Reason I'm asking is that Az Game and Fish hasn't issued any doe tags to the general public in several decades. Someone who explains shooting a sculpture thinking it was a doe is confessing to intending to commit a crime. Most likely he was simply lying to you, and you should have called it in to the sheriff's department.

Seems whenever somebody with a gun commits vandalism, people want to say it was a hunter. Haven't you noticed there are a lot of people who just want to go out into the desert and shoot at things?

You say the majority of hunters are idiots. Unless you know of some formal study measuring the I.Q.'s of hunters, you're evidently basing your sweeping assessment on personal experience. One's perspective tends to be influenced by the members of any group one is exposed to. The hunters I know are businessmen, engineers, lawyers, judges, teachers, biologists, building contractors and otherwise gainfully employed people who do not turn into morons when they go into the mountains and deserts. If I just went by the ones I know, I'd have to conclude that hunters are smarter, wealthier and more responsible than the average person. Of course, I know better. And I'm sure my perspective would be different if I were mainly exposed to the people who roam the back roads of Cochise County with guns looking for stuff to shoot at. The social data (school performance, crime rates and other metrics for social and economic well-being) for Cochise would not lead one to expect particularly dignified conduct among its citizens when they think no one is watching. I know this because I once got sick enough of listening to ranchers complain about those slob hunters from the city that I took the trouble to pull up data on Graham, Cochise and Santa Cruz counties. The stats suggested that a fairly high level of shot up signs, thievery and vandalism should be expected just based on who's living there. SE Az ranchers don't have to look to the cities to bring in bad actors. They're growing them at home.

Also recognize that responsible shooters and hunters go largely unnoticed while screw-ups leave evidence they've been around.

Philospher Eric Hoffer put it this way: "There is a tendency to judge a race, a naton or any distinct group by its least worthy members." Unless you have some means of measuring the behavior and character of hunters are a whole, you're simply giving us a read on who you're living among.

I'm not usually one for rants and raves, but this subject is a pretty sore point with me.
Audsley: Well said, but, my friends are professional businessmen who love nothing more than to have their dogs run a lion up a tree, and then stand there and and shoot it, no skill, no hunt, no effort, just fat out of shape men with nothing more to do than kill something. These hunters also use cameras, feeders, scents….. to lure their prey. I laughed out loud at them for buying multiple 50lb sacks of feed to lure the deer. Jesus, the bloodlust must be so strong they cannot think straight. Oh yeah, another favorite of theirs is to call "varmints" in and shoot the animal that appears-just to let it lie there. The story goes on & on. I grew up hunting all game in Arizona but have over the years stopped completely because I view it as needless killing. Hunting might have been necessary for human survival in prehistoric times, but today most hunters stalk and kill animals merely for the thrill of it, not out of necessity. Pure & simple, it is blood-entertainment.
I have become a huge trap & skeet fan, have a lot of fun with it, can outshoot any of the average hunters out there, use my guns often and do not have to participate in blood-lust entertainment.
 
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