Arizona Game and Fish Commission will have a meeting on Friday April
14th and Saturday April 15th, beginning at 8am at the Fraternal
Order of Police Lodge #2 located at 12851 N. 19th Avenue in Phoenix.

If you have your taxes done, please take the time to attend the meeting
on Saturday and support a seasonal ban on recreational shooting of
Gunnison's Prairie Dogs, found in northern Arizona. One of the colonies
near Williams is where the black-footed ferrets have been
reintroduced...and where unlimited shooting continues.

The issue of concern is agenda item #2,"Hearing on Proposed
Commission Orders 11-18 for 2000-2001 Hunting Season" which will
establish seasons, bag limits, etc. for various animals.  If you are
busy with taxes, please send a short letter or email to the Arizona Game
and Fish Commission, 2221 W. Greenway Rd., Phoenix, AZ  85023-4399.  You
can fax letters to (602) 789-3299 or email them to all Commissioners c/o
[log in to unmask]

Prairie dogs are key to the health of many ecosystems including short
and mixed-grass communities. Without prairie dogs, the biodiversity of
these grassland areas is significantly threatened. Where prairie dogs
occur there is greater plant diversity, higher numbers of small mammals
and predators such as ferrets, badgers, and foxes, as well as greater
bird species diversity and abundance. Unregulated recreational shooting
appears to pose an increasing threat to the prairie dogs (and associated
species) and until we know more, it seems logical that we should be
conservative with the management of prairie dogs, especially in light of
their reduced numbers.

The Commission should act now to place some limits on the recreational
shooting, and at a minimum these animals should be allowed a period
during the year when they can rebound from hunting and maintain their
numbers. Please ask the Commission to act now to establish a seasonal
ban on shooting of prairie dogs between April 1 and June 30 when they
are raising their young. A season is especially critical in the Aubrey
Valley where the Game and Fish Department is working with others on
re-introduction of Black-footed ferrets.

You might also mention something about wasted game, as most prairie dogs
that are shot are left in the field. You may also want to insist on the
Commission imposing a low bag limit (the number of animals that shooters
can have in possession). Though many may not agree with hunting at all,
by providing a "season and bag limits" on Gunnison's Prairie Dogs, at
least some protection would be given to them outside the shooting
season, and a low bag and possession limit would ensure that sitting on
ones ass shooting them from afar is not an all day affair, and it would
eliminate contests that revolve around seeing who can splatter the most
prairie dogs....if it were enforced. If the Commission sets such a rule,
the Department personnel are duty-bound to enforce it.

For those of you who do not abide hunting, please also write a letter
saying why. The Commission needs to recognize your concerns. Thanks to
Sandy Bahr of the Sierra Club for putting out this alert, although I
have taken the liberty of embellishing it with more WDR ideas. And
thanks to you all who can come to the meeting or write the Commission.
Nancy Zierenberg, Wildlife Damage Review
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For more information on Arizona legislation go to the web page
http://www.azleg.state.az.us.  If you're outside the Phoenix area, you
can call your legislator's office toll free at 1-800-352-8404. In the
Phoenix area call (602) 542-3559 (Senate) or (602) 542-4221 (House).
Correspondence goes to 1700 W. Washington, Phoenix, AZ  85007-2890.  To
email legislators use first initial + 7 letters of
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