Press Release: Game and Fish Protest
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: NOVEMBER 8, 2005
Earth First! Crane Defenders to Protest at Game and Fish Office: File Complaint, Demand Action
Contact: Ben Pachano or Jonathan Shapiro, Chuk’shon Earth First!
(520) 884-0283; sabthebastards@hotmail.com
Previous press releases available at www.azef.org.
On Tuesday, November 8 at 3:00 p.m., Chuk’shon Earth First! activists newly returned from the field near Willcox, where they have been using their presence to warn birds away from areas where hunters lie in wait, will be joined by other concerned members of the public in a protest at the Arizona Game and Fish Department’s (AGFD’s) Tucson office. The protesters will be filing an official “Operation Game Thief” report against hunting guide Steven Ward and demanding an immediate moratorium on this year’s hunt pending an investigation by AGFD.
On November 1-2, EF! activists observed Steven Ward of Ward’s Outfitters (www.wardsoutfitters.com) illegally hunting from a road. They also recorded evidence of the brutality inherent in AGFD’s sandhill crane hunt in the form of a hunter beating a living bird against farm equipment. Based on this new evidence and the ecological arguments against the hunt, Earth First! is demanding an end to all sandhill crane hunting in Arizona. As a minimum first step, EF! demands an immediate moratorium on this year’s hunt until AGFD can investigate how widespread such violations and cruelty are.
“If Game and Fish won’t take even this reasonable measure, we will have no choice but to remain in the field,” said Ben Pachano of Chuk’shon Earth First!. “Who else is going to defend these birds from senseless slaughter?”
New footage, now available, shows EF! activists alerting sandhill crane flocks to a human presence in fields that the birds might otherwise land in.
Although the species is still recovering from nearly being wiped out by overhunting in the 20th century, AGFD authorized the largest-ever sandhill crane hunt in Arizona this year, giving out permits for 730 cranes to be killed. 35,000 sandhill cranes are killed or crippled annually by sport hunters in 13 states along their migratory route from Siberia to northern Mexico.
The AGFD office is at 555 N. Greasewood Rd.