Wildlife advocates are cautiously optimistic about proposed rule changes by the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish that could decrease the number of cougars legally killed in a season and would ban trapping and snaring for sport.

The proposal marks a change from 2015, the last time the department revised its hunting rules for cougars and bears.

Game and Fish, which held the first of four public hearings to gather input on the issue earlier this week in Raton, also is considering changes to bear management zone boundaries, though it has not proposed changes to the number of bear kills allowed. Three additional hearings will be held around the state next week.

Jessica Johnson, chief legislative officer for Animal Protection of New Mexico, said the agency’s proposed rule changes are step in the right direction. “The department’s new proposal that we’re thrilled to hear is the suggestion to lower the annual kill limit, based on data that the state has overestimated the number of cougars in New Mexico,” she said.

The organization also is pleased to see a proposed rollback on foot traps and snares, Johnson said, calling the devices inhumane and indiscriminate because they create the possibility of harming other animals.

However, she said, Animal Protection would like to see a complete ban on the practice.

Read the article in the Santa Fe New Mexican »

Animal Protection and the Humane Society of the U.S. filed two lawsuits against the state in 2016 — one in federal court and the other in state District Court — after the New Mexico Game Commission voted to loosen trapping restrictions and increase kill limits for bears and cougars.

The department has not yet set a proposed new limit on cougar kills. The limit will be based on a new study on population numbers expected to be released in September or October, agency spokesman James Pitman said.

Currently, the maximum number of cougars that can be killed in a year is 740. In 2018-19, cougar kills totaled 409. Of those, 344 were killed for sport, 25 were killed in response to the cats preying on livestock or causing other concerns and 40 were killed by car accidents or the department’s control efforts, Pitman said.

Rules for hunting and fishing in the state are reviewed every four years and have to go through a public process. Over the next two months, Pitman said, the department will gather public input, present new data on the cougar population and issue a final ruling in October. The Game Commission is scheduled to vote on the rule changes Nov. 21, and any approved changes would take effect April 1.

“What’s important,” Johnson said, “is how the department chooses to apply the data coming out later this month. We’ve yet to see whether the new proposed kill limit will be scientifically appropriate.”

In 2015, she said, Game and Fish greatly overestimated the number of cougars by “using an unpublished master’s thesis” suggesting an increased harvest limit that allowed “the decimation of the population.”

Methods of deciding on kill limits for cougars in New Mexico have created controversy for more than a decade.

But the Game and Fish Department and Animal Protection of New Mexico agree that cougar numbers are difficult to determine. Johnson and Tristanna Bickford, a spokeswoman for Game and Fish, also agree that getting an accurate count is vital for ensuring genetic diversity and a stable population.

Bruce Wagman, a lawyer for Animal Protection and the Humane Society in the 2015 lawsuits against the agency, said the cases will continue unless new rules for hunting and trapping cougars takes effect during the 2019-20 hunting season.

Bickford said she could not comment on the lawsuit, citing department policy.

Under the department’s proposal, Pitman said, private landowners would still be allowed to use traps and snares to kill cougars on their property if they obtain a permit due to concerns over livestock deaths or other attacks.

According to Game and Fish data, trapping accounts for very few cougar deaths each year. In 2016-17, four cougars were trapped. And out of 292 killed in 2017-18, 20 were caught by trapping. Just 13 cougars were trapped in 2018-19 out of the 409 killed.

Still, Animal Protection isn’t alone in opposing traps and snares. Groups such as the American Veterinary Medical Association, the American Animal Hospital Association, the World Veterinary Association and the National Animal Control Association have condemned leg-hold traps as inhumane and recommend they not be used. Such devices often ensnare dogs and other animals, prompting an outcry from the public.

If you go

Three more public hearings to gather input on rule changes for hunting and trapping cougars will be held throughout the state next week. All hearings are set for 6 to 7:30 p.m.

• Albuquerque: Tuesday, Department of Game and Fish office, 7816 Alamo Road NW.
• Las Cruces: Thursday, Department of Game and Fish office, 2715 Northrise Drive.
• Roswell: Friday, Department of Game and Fish office, 1615 West College Blvd.

The post Advocates see proposed cougar rules in New Mexico as good step appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

February 2019 photo shows a foothold trap intended for bobcats, set by licensed trapper Tom Fisher, on the outskirts of Tierra Amarilla. New Mexico regulators have adopted new rules that will prohibit trapping or snaring cougars for sport. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee, File)

The state Game Commission voted unanimously in favor the new regulations during a meeting Thursday in Roswell.

The decision comes after Animal Protection of New Mexico and the Humane Society of the United States filed a lawsuit arguing that traps and snares threatened legally protected species such as endangered Mexican gray wolves and that hunting quotas for cougars were unsustainably high.

Laura Bonar, chief program and policy officer for Animal Protection of New Mexico, said the vote was the right decision by the commission but that more needs to be done.

“We urge the commission to take the next logical step, which is to prohibit all traps and snares on public lands,” she said. “Trapping and public lands are incompatible.”

The state Department of Game and Fish is considering proposed restrictions on wildlife traps and wire snares on select tracts of public lands outside of Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Las Cruces and Taos, along with a no-trapping buffer at officially recognized hiking trailheads.

It’s not clear how soon the Game Commission could act on that proposal.

Trapping and snaring triggered emotionally charged debates during the 2019 legislative session. A bill dubbed “Roxy’s Law” after a dog that was strangled by a poacher’s illegal snare on a lakeside trail would have banned traps, snares and animal poison on public land with few exceptions. It never came to a floor vote.

The new rules adopted are for the 2020-2024 seasons. They specifically involve cougar and bear management by the Game and Fish Department and hunting of the mammals.

Under the rules, hunting quotas for the two species will not increase. Hunters will be allowed to kill up to 580 cougars and more than 800 black bears.

However, the animal protection groups voiced concerns about the numbers, suggesting that the Game and Fish department lacks reliable population estimates for the species.

The department has said the population estimates are a result of density estimates from academic studies conducted in various locations in New Mexico and in comparable habitat in other states. The department also looks at habitat quality when determining how many of the animals can be hunted while maintaining sustainable population sizes.

Read the article in the Albuquerque Journal »

The post New Mexico panel opts to end recreational cougar trapping appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

Thank you so much for shining some light on trapping in the US and in particular in New Mexico in your recent article. I noticed that you embedded in it a video of how to remove a dog from a trap produced by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. As it happens, my own dog was caught in a leg-hold trap here in New Mexico on National Forest Land a year ago. It was a terrifying and brutal experience nothing like the serene narrator of the video would imply. It left my dog and me both injured. I know how to open a trap from my volunteering with TrapFree New Mexico and was able to get her out of the trap quickly. I had been photographing birds only moments before and had the presence of mind once I realized what was happening to push the record button on my camera. The result is video that is nothing but chaos and audio that is painfully clear; my dog screaming and me frantically trying to free her. Traps are not the humane and benign devices trappers would have you believe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8aq5H8aSkA&feature=youtu.be

Also, in the last two months alone in New Mexico, four highly endangered Mexican Wolves have been caught in traps set for something else. Only one was unharmed. One had a puncture wound that developed into a limp and caused officials to set out a food cache for the animal, one suffered a full leg amputation and one died; not a great track record for devices that are supposed to be ‘humane’. This year follows a string of years in which the struggling population of wolves has suffered  accidental trapping with injuries, amputations and death.

As for being scientific, having done the document requests, New Mexico Game and Fish cannot claim any scientific wildlife management justification for recreational and commercial trapping. They do not have population studies for ‘furbearers’ like bobcats, gray foxes, badgers, or ringtails. There are no management plans for any of them. And yet there are no bag limits on any furbearing species, no quotas, and no zones that take into account different habitat types. Trappers don’t have to tell anyone where traps are or how many traps they have set. They do have to report the number of ‘furbearers’ they catch but incidental captures, which we know can include bears, javelina, mountain lions (especially kittens), birds like ravens, roadrunners, quail and raptors, go un-documented.

We at www.TrapFreeNM.org, a coalition of conservation and animal protection organizations, do not believe trapping for commerce and recreation is necessary. 10% of the land area in NM is already off limits to trappers including National parks and Monuments, the Valles Caldera National Preserve, State parks and even land owned by the NM State Game Commission. This latter is set aside for hunters. If trapping were so essential, the State Game Commission would be the first to allow it. Moreover, what happens on these lands is that the population of carnivores like coyotes stabilize. They limit their own density by defending territory and keeping out interlopers. They do not grow to the sky but remain stable over time if left alone. Instead, trapping can disrupt the stability and social structure that are the true controls of population. Studies have shown that coyotes, which are so unjustly maligned, primarily eat rodents, rabbits and, depending on the season, insects, carrion and wild fruit like juniper berries.  In their role in nature, they are important ecosystem managers. A small percentage can turn to livestock, but there are measures that ranchers can take that are effective in preventing, minimizing or even stopping loss to predation. In our neighboring states of AZ and CO where traps have been significantly reined in, both sheep and cattle ranches still operate successfully.

A few years before my dog was trapped, I was with a group of hikers and we found a trapped coyote whose leg was mutilated by the trap. She was in the process of self amputation. When we returned with a game warden, she had completed the job to escape to an uncertain fate.

Combined with having my dog caught, from what I have seen, trapping is neither selective, humane, necessary or compatible with public land use. I see it as exploitative, cruel and contrary to conservation. As with other contentious issues from vaccines to climate change, there is scientific evidence, opinion, and propaganda. Sorting them out is challenging but essential for an informed discussion.

Sincerely,
Mary Katherine Ray
in the far outback of Socorro county, NM
for www.trapfreenm.org

The post TrapFree NM response to March 2, 2019 NBC News.com article appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

There are those who hope to change that – including a dog owner who recently saw his beloved pet strangled to death while they were walking on public land. He’s joined by a pair of lawmakers – House Democrats Bobby Gonzales of Taos and Matthew McQueen of Galisteo – who are sponsoring the New Mexico Wildlife Protection and Public Safety Act.

The legislation would prohibit the use of leg-hold and body-crushing traps, snares and poisons on public lands in New Mexico. It would not apply to private or tribal land; it explicitly exempts other hunting and fishing; and it contains exceptions for human health, ecosystem management and scientific research.

It’s being sponsored in memory of Roxy, an 8-year-old heeler that died while on a trail Nov. 25 with owner Dave Clark at the federal Bureau of Land Management’s Santa Cruz Lake Recreation Area near Española. Roxy was caught in a neck snare, and Clark worked to free her but was unable to loosen it before she died.

To make matters worse, when Clark finally freed Roxy from the snare and was carrying her body back to where he left his car, a bobcat that was caught in a leg-hold trap chained to a tree lashed out at him. The bobcat was so severely injured it had to be euthanized.

Similar trapping bans have had trouble passing in previous sessions, and this one will likely face opposition from groups such as New Mexico Trappers Association (NMTA), which claims trapping is part of New Mexico’s rich heritage and for some families trapping is a way of life and sole source of income.

Surviving on maiming and strangling living things is tragic if true. And New Mexico has already stepped up and banned the so-called rich heritage of strapping knives to roosters that are jacked up on steroids so they can fight to the death. New Mexicans’ humanity should prevail again.

Roxy’s story is a sad one, and it’s not unique. Dogs and wildlife are too often caught in traps’ jaws or snares – the fox and the bobcat near Placitas, the dog in the East Mountains and the one near Taos, the cougar near Wagon Mound. Now take it a step further and consider what would happen if a child were caught while a family is taking advantage of one of the outdoor paradises we have in the Land of Enchantment. The state is being sued for allowing trapping on public lands that puts endangered Mexican Gray wolves at risk. It shouldn’t take a lawsuit over a child’s injury or death to get New Mexico on a better path.

Leg-hold traps were invented in the 1800s and have been banned in more than 80 countries, and banned or severely restricted in eight states, because they are cruel and indiscriminate. Poisons also kill unintended targets and cause equally gruesome, excruciating deaths. Newly elected Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard is pledging to remove the outdated and dangerous devices from state trust lands. It’s time for lawmakers to follow her lead and ban them on all public lands.

The 2018-19 fur trapping season continues until March 15. Trapping was a romanticized and acceptable practice during the age of the mountain man in the first half of the 19th century. But this isn’t 1845, and the age of the mountain man is gone.

Traps and poisons on New Mexico’s public lands should be, too.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.

Read this article in the Albuquerque Journal »

The post Albuquerque Journal Editorial: Let this latest trapping death of a pet be NM’s last appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

Despite a seven-year campaign by wildlife advocates to remove traps from public lands, the game commission continues to promote the trapping and killing of countless thousands of wild animals throughout the state. For just $20, trappers can buy a license to set as many traps and kill as many animals as they want in a manner so cruel it has been banned in over 100 countries. These traps are not marked, so anyone on public lands is at risk. Current rules allow some 500 trappers to hold the entire state hostage for a product we don’t need. Trappers kill our wildlife for personal profit, privatizing and vandalizing a public asset. This massive, indiscriminate killing is not management in any real sense and serves no constructive purpose in modern society. It’s a sad fact that our game commission is focused on continuing the exploitation of vulnerable wildlife.

Read the entire Guest Column in the Albuquerque Journal »

The post A Toxic Relationship: Wildlife management is failing the animals and the people of NM appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

The cougar trapping season, which began Nov. 1 and ends March 31, is the first in nearly 50 years.

Judge Lourdes A. Martinez issued a ruling in favor of local wildlife advocates, The Humane Society of the United States and Animal Protection of New Mexico, which filed the lawsuit in federal court in New Mexico against New Mexico State Game Commissioners and the director of the state Department of Game and Fish.

The post Judge: Challenge to cougar trapping may proceed appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

Starting November 1 of this year—for the first time in nearly five decades—millions of acres of New Mexico’s private and state trust lands are now open to cougar trapping until March 31, 2017.

This means everyone is at greater risk of stepping into cougar traps and snares, including nursing mother cougars and their kittens who are supposed to be protected under state regulations, as well as federally protected endangered species like Mexican wolves.

What kind of barbaric devices will now litter our state in large numbers? The traps contain a spring-loaded trigger that closes two steel jaws, which can spread up to approximately seven inches wide, around the leg of an animal that steps between the jaws. Snares use a coiled spring with a looped metal cable that cinches tightly around an animal’s foot. Captured animals often further injure themselves while thrashing or even chewing off their own trapped limb while trying to escape. Traps often go unchecked for long enough that the animal starves, dies of thirst or exposure, or is killed by another animal before being found.

Traps and snares are cruel and completely indiscriminate. Why does that matter?

• That matters when a healthy cougar population depends on mothers being able to raise their young into adulthood (orphaned cubs younger than six months have a 96% rate of death by starvation).
• That matters when the survival of an entire species can be jeopardized by even just one animal dying from a trap injury. For example, there are only about 97 Mexican wolves left in the world, and many of them live in New Mexico.
• That matters as New Mexico families and their dogs hike all over our beautiful lands, and can easily step into a trap, resulting in anguish, thousands of dollars in medical and/or veterinary bills, and sometimes maiming and even death of companion animals.

 What Can You Do?

Support APNM’s legal efforts to stop this disastrous cougar trapping season: www.apnm.org/donate

The post Breaking News: Cougar Trapping Season Has Started appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.