Outdoor Recreationists

The Arizona Game And Fish Department has launched an exciting new Web-based mapping tool, “Recreational Access Arizona,” that provides hunters, anglers, and other outdoor recreationists with important information about access to and through private lands.

The free tool, which utilizes GIS mapping technology, is available at http://www.azaccessmap.com.

Recreational Access Arizona was developed as part of the Game and Fish Department’s efforts to secure, maintain and enhance public recreational access to private lands, or to federal or state-owned lands that are “land-locked” by private lands. It provides a wealth of other information as well.

Want to see the boundaries of the Game Management Unit you’re in or where water catchments are located? Are you interested in what wildlife species are in a particular area? All the information is available with the click of a mouse anywhere on the map. The more places you click, the more information you can find.

To help get you started, just click on the “How to Use the Map” link in the upper right-hand corner of the page after you’ve logged on.

Even more exciting is that you can create your own map using this tool with a topographic map, aerial images, or street maps as the background. Just export the map you make and print it out on your home printer, or take it in to a printing service to print a large map.

Development and maintenance of this tool were made possible through a grant that Game and Fish received from the Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program, which is a federal program authorized in the 2012 Farm Bill.

The department plans to add information that is useful to hunters and other outdoor recreationists over time, so users are encouraged to use the “Send Comments” link in the upper right-hand portion of the web page to e-mail comments for consideration.

For more information, visit http://www.azaccessmap.com.