TUCSON, Ariz.— Conservation groups today petitioned the Arizona Game and Fish Commission to ban the use of dog packs to hunt mountain lions, bears, bobcats, foxes and other wildlife. The petition calls on the commission to modernize Arizona’s regulations, as other states have done, to safeguard both wildlife and the public.
“The science is clear, packs of hunting dogs let loose on public lands cause significant harm to native ecosystems and wildlife. Their prohibition in Arizona is long overdue,” said Russ McSpadden, Southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Currently hunters use GPS-collared dogs to track wildlife for miles via smart phone apps and satellites, often from their vehicles. This trophy hunting method not only undermines fair chase principles as well as Arizona and federal law, it also disrupts hundreds of species of native wildlife and threatens jaguars, wolves and ocelots, just as these amazing endangered species are staging a comeback to the wilds of Arizona.”
According to Arizona Game and Fish data, 748 mountain lions and 323 bears were reported killed by hunters using packs of dogs between 2020 and 2023. A 2020 study estimated that the state’s entire mountain lion population was between 1,166 and 1,715.
“It’s just common sense that hunting mountain lions with dog packs is not fair chase, a principle that has guided hunting practices for more than a century,” said R. Brent Lyles, executive director of the Mountain Lion Foundation. “Mountain lions are critically important, and they deserve better than to be shot out of a tree after being cornered there by hounds wearing radio collars. This petition offers Arizona a chance to implement fair and humane practices that respect both the dignity of wildlife and the ethics of hunting.”
Today’s petition says that releasing unsupervised dogs on public lands creates hazards for humans and may violate the Endangered Species Act. It highlights cases of hunting dog packs endangering hikers and other public lands users and inadvertently targeting federally protected animals like jaguars. The petition also stresses that the practice violates hunting ethics like the principle of fair chase.
“Most Arizonans, including hunters, want wildlife treated respectfully and don’t support methods of hunting that violate hunting ethics,” said Sandy Bahr, director for Sierra Club Grand Canyon (Arizona) Chapter. “Arizona Game and Fish should act on this petition expeditiously and ban dog pack hunting, for our wildlife, for our public lands and for people’s safety.”
The petition also points out the significant risk of harms to hunting dogs themselves, including physical injuries, abandonment of underperforming or injured dogs, chronic health complications due to exhaustion, dehydration and selective breeding. Dogs are sometimes purposely starved by their owners to increase their prey drive.
The proposed changes would only restrict the use of dogs in recreational hunts for large mammals. The changes would not apply to the use of dogs for bird hunting or managing depredation through permitted hunts, preserving Arizona’s wildlife management and traditional hunting practices.
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