By Howard Fischer Capitol Media Services
Arizona voters won’t get a chance to outlaw “trophy hunting” in the state, at least not this year.
The Humane Society of the United States has pulled the plug on its proposal to put a measure on the November ballot to make it illegal to pursue, shoot, snare, net or capture any “wild cat” — specifically bobcats and mountain lions.
Related: The cat’s out of the bag . . . and onto the ballot by Phil Riske
In a prepared statement, Kitty Block, acting president of The Humane Society of the United States, said she still believes that Arizonans would support the initiative.
But she said efforts to gather the minimum 150,642 valid signatures by July 5 have been hampered by some new Arizona laws governing the circulation of initiative petitions and requiring “strict compliance” with every technical aspect of state election laws. Those laws, she said, make signature gathering more difficult and make it more expensive to hire paid circulators.
Block also said there also are “national issues that currently demand our attention.”
