Arizona ban on trail cams

[wedgy]

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Thread from LRH

https://www.longrangehunting.com/threads/arizona-ban-on-trail-cams.254777/

UPDATE ON POTENTIAL ARIZONA TRAIL CAMERA BAN​

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Trail camera use in question in Arizona. Photo credit: Brady Miller
On Friday, December 4, Arizona Game and Fish Department held one of their annual commission meetings. Note: We wanted to bring this to everyone's attention and will be supplementing this article as we receive more information.

On November 20, the public meeting notice and agenda were available and one certain item on this agenda you could tell was going to be a hot topic. That hot topic was trail camera use in Arizona. The last time changes were made to trail camera use in Arizona was in 2018, you can read more on those previous changes here.

Number 14 on the Dec. 4 agenda was the following:

“Request to Approve a Notice of Rulemaking Docket Opening, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Amending Article 3. Taking and Handling of Wildlife. Presenter: Larry Phoenix, FOR3 Regional Supervisor. The Department will ask the Commission to vote to approve a Notice of Rulemaking Docket Opening, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, and Economic Impact Statement to initiate rulemaking to amend rules within Article 3. Taking and Handling of Wildlife, related to the use of game cameras.”

During the meeting, the commission approved Option #1 in a 5-0 vote which is to ban the use of all trail cameras.

Option 1 is as follows:​

Ban the use of all trail cameras
R12-4-301: Repeal definition of “live action trail camera.”
R12-4-301: Add definition: “Trail camera” means an unmanned device used to capture images, video, or location data of wildlife.
R12-4-303: A person shall not use a trail camera, or images from a trail camera, for the purpose of taking or aiding in the take of wildlife, or locating wildlife for the purpose of taking or aiding in the take of wildlife.

Other options included a season on the use of trail cameras with a closed season from July 1 to January 31.

Option 2 is as follows:​

Establish a trail camera season
R12-4-301: Add definition: "Trail camera" means an unmanned device used to capture images, video, or location data of wildlife.
R12-4-303: A person shall not use a trail camera, or images from a trail camera, for the purpose of taking or aiding in the take of wildlife, or locating wildlife for the purpose of taking or aiding in the take of wildlife from July 1 through January 31 annually.

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There has already been a petition started on Change.org gathering signatures in opposition of this potential ban. You can check out the petition here.

Stay tuned for more updates as this moves along and when the public comment period will be. Note: this isn't set in stone at this time. If you would like to contact the Arizona Game and Fish Commission in the meantime, their name and contact information are below.

 

[centershot]

Why not? They think that prairie dogs are protected during the mating season. What next?

 

[tommeboy]

They don't want you to catch them on your land. DNR across the country have been caught going onto private property to add cameras without your permission. If they are doing this they are trying to hide something from you.

 

[DirtySteve]

Put the camera out to watch for trespassing... and other illegal activity..

 

[wedgy]

Put the camera out to watch for trespassing... and other illegal activity..

Yes, a security camera.

 

[2506]

Probably got paid from the dope runners to stop using cameras to identify them as the cross the border. I love my country but I don't trust those in government.

 

[pirate ammo]

Why not? They think that prairie dogs are protected during the mating season. What next?

Thought you said the prairie dogs were WEARING protection during mating season, losing my mind.

 

[nakneker]

It’s a complicated issue, I live here in Arizona and we hunt all over the state, including the Strip and the Blue Wilderness. On the strip cameras are out of hand, every water hole has multiple cameras, I’ve seen many as 22 cameras one one water hole, most every buck up there is known by multiple guides. The area is hard to draw and the herd is well managed but the year around pressure is pretty insane. On the Blue the story is a little different, it’s more remote but over the last few years cameras are showing up in many of its back country too. There are multiple guides who run large numbers of cameras on the Blue, one guide has one employee who makes the rounds checking a bunch of cameras gear around, I’ve been told he has over 400 cameras out in that unit but have no way of knowing if that’s true or not. They just harvested the state record elk on the Blue, 470+. Multiple people had it on their cameras for the past year or two and the guy that took it had a guide that used a team to find it, bed it and take it. It was watched for the majority of the time it was in velvet. The guy who took it has the money to finance what ended up being a pretty extensive operation between keeping track of it, finding it and harvesting it.

I’m not sure where I stand on it. I have a friend who runs cameras on the Blue and other areas and has used cameras for years. He has one buck he watched for 9 years, 11,000 pics, and eventually was able to take him when he scored just over 230, in his prime that buck was well over 270 inches. The amazing thing is I’m pretty sure nobody else was aware of that buck and he was able to document and eventually harvest him over a period of many years. It’s a neat story and I hope someday he writes about it and shares it. He enjoys the many pics from his cameras and spends many days in the field documenting the wildlife on his route. To me, it would be a shame for him to lose what he loves So much. That attached picture is that buck I’m referring to in his prime, he was taken three years later.

If they do move forward and ban these cameras I would imagine it will be hard to enforce and there will be a small percentage of guys who continue to use them. That’s a whole other issue.

I miss the old ways of hunting. I liked it when it was less tech and more of hunting in traditional ways. Cameras have changed that and more and more truly spectacular animals are being taken and hunting continues to move towards a money And tech game which I don’t like at all. Then there is the whole freedom side to things, who wants more regulation? We are constantly being regulated more and more in every aspect of our lives and I certainly get tired of that. So like I said, there’s a lot to this issue and I’m not sure where I stand. I guess we will see what happens, I’m pretty sure the ban will happen and we will see how it plays out.

 

[Bill K]

People don't realize how much freedom is being lost, with the way government is and also how it is being managed by the anti's, way more than you can see.

 

[Dub]

I guess my take is not so much on a loss of freedom but an attempt to make the taking of game more fair for both the hunter and the game.It sounds like guides are using this to influence clients and thus minimize the chances of the average hunter. If my thinking is correct, then I support the camera ban.

 

[Lefty Trigger]

I remember when hunting ment hunting, never had cameras we used our eyes and flashlights because we was stomping up in the woods at 4:30am

 

[pilot]

Sounds like most of this camera use in Arizona is on public land. The proposed rules don't seem to differentiate between public and private land. I can see the regulation for public land, but not on private. As DirtySteve said, a security camera and a trail camera can be one and the same.

 

[beemanjohn]

Sounds to me like they have more of a guide problem than a camera problem. There is getting to be way too much money in hunting anymore. The average guy is being left behind by the guys with deep pockets.

 

[msinc]

This has to be about public land...I'd like to see some government idiot tell me I cant place a camera on land that I own. Otherwise, it's up to the state to prove intent and I don't see how they could. The other thing is that they would have to trespass to find your cameras on private land. Two wrongs don't make a right.
If it is true then they may, like my state, pass a law that cannot be enforced. Our sheriff already said, "there is no way we can enforce this magazine law in MD". We've got one that says all magazines manufactured after a certain date are illegal. I have yet to see a magazine with a "made on" date......The people that pass these laws are ridiculous., Why do communists liberal democrats constantly want to tell the rest of the world what to do?????

 

[Intheshop]

I never used them because it's like opening a Christmas present before the day.

But the heck with someone interfering on private property.

 

[Riesel]

I use live cameras to help my hunters harvest hogs, and we still can't stay ahead of them. Note large sow
in the middle picture. She will give you 21 new ones in a year! !
Private land in Texas

 

[rjtfroggy]

Ten years ago when I was still hunting there were cameras all over the Ct. woods I would imagen it has gotten worse by now.
I caught my former hunting partner putting a friend of his in my stand , also caught him putting out human hair around one of my stands. Needless to say we haven't even spoken for going on 12 years.
Cameras placed carefully and in discreet locations can give you a lot more than just the animal patterns.

 

[wkdickinson]

Here in the UP of MI the relationship between trail cams and hunting, has become like fly tying and trout fishing - which one is the real sport?

 

[Dusty Stevens]

They dont want the iilegal aliens or drug smuggling on camera floating around social media

 

[Jsf1978]

I live in western NC. My dad started taking me to the woods when I wasn’t long out of diapers. He taught me to scout, find the sign, read it and kill the buck making it. I just turned 42 and have laid more deer to rest than I can remember. We used to have a 5 buck limit here and there was very seldom a good buck killed. Since they’ve cut it back to 2. It helped some. The last couple years the amount of mature deer killed has exploded. Where I’m going with this is not to brag or bash or anything but to give my belief on why. Most everyone around here has multiple cameras in the woods now. Hunters, here anyway, are actually seeing just what kind of bucks there are out there and in turn letting some of the younger ones pass. In MHO age is the most important ingredient in a buck getting big and cameras have helped here at least. I can see and respect both sides of the issue just sharing my experience with them. Sorry to be long winded