A longtime radical environmentalist and an Esquire magazine writer face charges of trespassing and interfering with a Forest Service operation after authorities arrested them Wednesday afternoon in Sabino Canyon. Authorities used binoculars and a helicopter guide to find activist Rod Coronado and writer John H. Richardson, who they said were trespassing in Sabino Canyon. A third person in the area escaped, said Harriet Bernick, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona. The two are also charged with being in a closed facility. They could be fined $5,000 and sentenced to six months in prison. They face an initial federal court appearance at 2 p.m. today in Tucson, where they will be arraigned on the misdemeanor charges. The U.S. Forest Service closed the canyon March 9 because of the presence of what officials said are aggressive lions that represent a public- safety threat. A trapper hired by the state Game and Fish Department failed to capture any lions in the third day of the state's hunt. The search was halted at midafternoon Wednesday because of the heat and will resume today. Once captured, the lions would be airlifted to a wildlife rehabilitation center in Scottsdale where they will stay the rest of their lives. Federal and state officials captured Coronado and Richardson midday Wednesday, after spotting them on a ridgetop south of the main Sabino Canyon road about a mile up the canyon from the Sabino Canyon Visitors Center. The two men wore light tan shirts and pants. Authorities escorted them out of the canyon in handcuffs. Officials at the Federal Correctional Institute at 8901 S. Wilmot Road said the two men were being held there late Wednesday. As authorities were preparing to take Coronado in for questioning, the Earth First activist said, "I'm being chained up like a lion." Law enforcement officials refused to let reporters talk to either man. A little more than a week ago, Coronado said in an interview that Earth Firsters have sneaked into Sabino Canyon and were planning to disrupt the lion hunt. The hunt has drawn criticism from Gov. Janet Napolitano and other environmental groups that say the state hasn't proved that the public threat was serious enough to warrant capture of the big cats. "If it comes down to it, if we see the hounds tree a lion, we'll put our bodies between the lion and the hunter," said Coronado, an animal-rights activist who has worked for a variety of environmental and animal-rights causes. Coronado was convicted in a 1992 arson fire at Michigan State University's mink research facilities. He served four years in federal prison. Coronado said last week that he was willing to face the consequences of trespassing or disrupting the hunt. The federal trapper the state hired to search for lions concluded Wednesday that the hot, dry weather was not as conducive to searching for lions as cooler and moister weather would be, said Gerry Perry, regional supervisor for Game and Fish's Tucson office. The trapper is also setting snare-type traps, in which lions set off a cable that holds them in place when they trip over a spring in the trap as they walk. Perry declined to say where the traps have been set or where the trapper went this week with the dogs, on the grounds that G&F doesn't want to provide information about the hunt when department officials continue to receive death threats. A member of the local Earth First chapter said Wednesday night that the group had not heard from Coronado since his arrest. Other activists remain in the canyon and will continue to try to disrupt the hunt, said Vanessa Green, a member of Earth First, which has strong roots in Tucson. "We'll be out there until the hunt stops," Green said. There have been reports of death threats against wildlife officials, but Earth First said it will not harm anyone. "People follow the hunters and by all nonviolent means work to stop them from treeing the lions and shooting them in their native habitat," Green said. "We do not condone death threats against people or animals." Green said the Earth First members are local residents, but would not say how many are in the canyon or how they got there. Earth First, founded by Tucsonan Dave Foreman and others, quickly became known as one of the environmental movement's most rebellious and controversial factions. Taking cues from former UA professor Edward Abbey's 1975 novel, "The Monkey Wrench Gang," the loosely organized group's affiliates toppled billboards, disabled bulldozers and, in 1993, locked themselves to cattle guards to block telescope construction atop Mount Graham, 75 miles northeast of Tucson. In March 2001, the Earth First Journal moved back to Tucson, where it was founded in 1980, after stints in Missoula, Mont., and Eugene, Ore. One of the journal's staff members said Wednesday that the publication covers Earth First members who commit civil disobedience, but it doesn't speak for them. A number of new reports of lion sightings in residential areas outside Sabino Canyon have come into Game and Fish's offices during the past 24 hours, but none has been confirmed, Perry said. However, authorities believe lions are still in the canyon because the trapper continues to find tracks there, Perry said. The state will keep looking for lions until it determines that there's no point in continuing, he said. "We're trying to get this done as quickly as possible. We might be done tomorrow. We might be done Friday. We might be done Saturday," Perry said. The state's failure to find any lions suggests that the public threat isn't as great as the department has said, said Daniel Patterson, an ecologist with the Center for Biological Diversity who has opposed the hunt. "You'd think if they were hanging around they would be able to find them."

By Associated Press
March 25, 2004

About 100 people were detained by police Thursday after a raid on an illegal cockfighting ring.

Miami-Dade Police said most of the believed participants will be released with a warning to better inform the public of a new state law that went into effect in October, making it a third degree felony to attend a cockfight.

Police said the main participants in the cockfighting ring will be arrested but no arrests have yet been made.

In cockfighting, steel spurs or razor-sharp knives are attacked to the legs of roosters to replace the natural spur. Two birds are placed into a pit and they fight until one of them is killed or quits, while spectators bet on the outcome.

Three breeders of game fowls were arrested on six felony criminal warrants in February after a 15-month investigation into dog and cockfighting in Indian River County

Source:  http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/wptv/article/0,1651,TCP_1213_2758798,00.html

---