Contacts:
Chris Smith, WildEarth Guardians, 505-395-6177, csmith@wildearthguardians.org

The economics of trapping, the number of species killed by trappers, and environmental harms are among topics covered by report

SANTA FE, NM—Today, WildEarth Guardians and members of the TrapFree New Mexico coalition released a detailed report that makes an in-depth case for banning traps on public lands. Touching on a wide array of topics, the report goes into detail on the economics of trapping versus other uses of public lands, common trap types and the injuries they cause, and the environmental impacts trapping may have on New Mexico. The report relies on data from the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, fur auctions, and other scientific sources.

Download the Trapping in New Mexico Report [4.8 MB PDF]

Trapping is touted by some as a rural economic engine in New Mexico. However, data from local and regional fur auctions makes clear that for the vast majority of trappers, the activity likely generates little to no net income. The average New Mexico trapper who attempted to sell every pelt from the 2018-2019 trapping season grossed between $264 and $440. After the cost of traps, baits and lures, licenses, chains, stakes, catchpoles, knives, and fuel, net income is likely substantially lower, and possibly a loss.

It is not clear, in fact, that trapping is an activity undertaken more by rural New Mexicans compared to urban residents. Trapping license purchases are concentrated among buyers in urban areas, according to data provided by New Mexico Department of Game and Fish.

“Our hope is that this information lays bare some of the misleading arguments that trappers and their allies use to perpetuate this cruel hobby,” said Chris Smith, southern Rockies wildlife advocate for WildEarth Guardians. “There is a common refrain from trappers that their tools are humane, that they are doing ‘wildlife management,’ and that trapping is lucrative. After examination, those claims don’t really carry water.”

A section titled “Interfering with Nature” highlights some of the impacts that widescale killing of native wildlife can have on desert ecosystems. Another section of the report shares just a few stories from the many New Mexicans who have seen their dogs injured and killed in traps on public lands.

“Whether archaic traps ensnare, maim and kill domestic dogs or wild coyotes, the ultimate result is the same: injustice and unjustified cruelty,” said Michelle L. Lute, national carnivore conservation manager for Project Coyote, and who holds a PhD in wildlife management. “Trapping is not legitimate management. It’s a sad form of recreation that robs ecosystems of native wildlife and families of their companion animals and needs to be outlawed as are other forms of animal cruelty.”

“Roxy’s Law,” named after a dog who died in a neck snare on public lands, would ban recreational and commercial trapping on public lands across New Mexico. The bill passed through two state House committees in 2019 and is set to be introduced again in the 2021 legislative session.

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There clearly has been inadequate consideration of the damaging proposal from the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish to allow concealed trapping on 95 percent of recreational public lands, which (need we be reminded) draw tourists and residents to New Mexico.

The governor and legislators must be aware that so much of our revenue is generated from tourism that is dependent on safe use of public lands. Isn’t that the state’s implicit promise in ads to attract tourism? And this tourist market can easily turn to enjoying nearby states where public land safety can be expected. Moreover, I would suggest that new residents are strongly attracted here for safe enjoyment of public land recreation.

New Mexico is great, but we should never forget that it’s competing with other states for these new residents and tourists who generate considerable direct and indirect contributions to the state economy. As this public trust is compromised by the state’s direct action to undoubtedly diminish safety, how many residents and what amount of tourism can political leaders claim is unnecessary?

State-endorsed danger to public land use constrains our most reliable revenue from tourism, risks discouraging current and future new residents, reduces state income, and diminishes use of one of the greatest natural resources that any state would desire. I am surprised that New Mexico leaders think we can afford to reject all this.

Finally and importantly, please note that I refrained from even discussing the great harm people and their beloved animal companions incur.

Susan Mertes moved to Santa Fe nine years ago from a career as an attorney and lobbyist in Washington, D.C.

Read this article in the Santa Fe New Mexican

The post MY VIEW: Trapping will damage tourism appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

Shooting wildlife with cameras has far more sustainable financial potential than hunting or the egregious trapping—still legal in New Mexico.

Please consider that 99.9% of the state’s population is not actively engaged in licensed, legal trapping. Trapping has virtually no limits on killing fur-bearing species, and virtually no consequences for trapping/killing non-target species including companion animals, endangered species, or livestock. Legal trapping is virtually impossible to regulate with a very limited number of conservation officers, further complicated by a large percentage of those officers actually trapping themselves. Trappers pay no gross receipts taxes and no royalties for extracting a public resource—the state wildlife.

The economic future of New Mexico will be increasingly dependent upon tourism—as it is now. The total annual state trust lands grazing fees are a small fraction of the revenue generated by Indian Market.

As a resident who is part of a generation that has failed miserably being responsible for the environment, I offer my sincere apologies. I hope younger generations will learn from our mistakes and become better guardians and advocates for the environment.

Joe Newman
Santa Fe

The post Don’t Trap, Photograph! appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

Because after all, that’s what smoke and mirrors is supposed to do – hide ugly reality.

And the ugly reality is in New Mexico, it is – and will continue to be under the proposed changes – legal to litter public lands with spring-loaded steel-jaw traps and snares, including along trails and roads and ½ mile from picnic areas, rest areas and campgrounds. There will continue to be, as Game and Fish proudly announces in its 2019-20 New Mexico Hunting Rules & Info booklet, “no bag limit on any protected furbearer” (raccoons, badgers, weasels, foxes, ringtails, bobcats, muskrats, beavers and nutria). No license for New Mexicans to set out traps for coyotes or skunks, classified as unprotected furbearers. And while it will be clarified that it is against the law to take mink, river otter, black-footed ferret, coatimundi and American marten, try telling that to a leg-hold or body-gripping trap or wire snare.

Because traps are as indiscriminate as they are brutal. Anything that steps in them is fair game. And for some unimaginable reason, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s Game commissioners want to keep it that way.

State law does not mandate trap locations be marked, signed or for any warnings to be present. Presumably because anything can, and does, step into a trap, there are and will continue to be no penalties for unintentionally trapping non-target species, including endangered species, protected species, domestic animals, pets, humans or livestock. Heck, there’s not even a gross receipts tax levied on the fur and pelts sold by trappers.

And while there will be required trapper training, and traps are to be clearly marked with the trapper’s information, there are too many cases of pets caught in unmarked/illegally placed devices – like the snare that killed family dog Roxy at Santa Cruz Lake last year.

(Our state lawmakers are not much better than the Game Commission; “Roxy’s Law,” an anti-trapping measure introduced by state Rep. Matthew McQueen, D-Galisteo, Rep. Bobby Gonzales, D-Ranchos De Taos, and Rep. Christine Chandler, D-Los Alamos, didn’t even make it to the House floor this spring.)

And so New Mexico, one of the last two states to ban the bloodsport of cockfighting, does next to nothing while others embrace moral and fiscal sense. This month, California banned fur trapping for animal pelts, making it the first state to outlaw commercial or recreational trapping on both public and private lands. The law’s sponsor, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, says the practice is “especially cruel” and “just unnecessary and costly,” adding that her state’s roughly six dozen trappers cannot afford to pay the full cost of implementing and regulating their industry.

Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Washington have banned or restricted the use of leg-hold traps, while New Mexico caters to a vocal minority.

Jessica Johnson, chief legislative officer for Animal Protection of New Mexico, says “the State Game Commission (should) respect the will of the vast majority of New Mexicans by getting traps and snares off our public land.” Email comments on the proposed changes are being accepted, public meetings are planned in October and November, and a vote is planned in January.

Trapping is a morally and fiscally expensive cruel anachronism whose time has come and gone. New Mexicans need to use the coming weeks to help the Game Commission understand that.

Read this Editorial in the Albuquerque Journal »

The post Editorial: Updated trapping regs just sidestepping gruesome NM reality appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

from Wyoming Untrapped

During the winter of 2016, a bobcat was frequently seen near the Madison River in Yellowstone. This single bobcat brought in tourists, photographers, and wildlife watchers from nationwide which resulted in an economic benefit to the local economy around Yellowstone National Park. In collaboration with Panthera, a cat research and conservation organization, our study aimed to quantify this value of one bobcat which was enjoyed by so many and is alive and well today to continue to bring visitors to see this fascinating species. In Wyoming, bobcats can be trapped in unlimited numbers from November 15 to March 1 of each year. Bobcats that are sold overseas or are exported out of the state must be tagged by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) as required by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) which aims to reduce or eliminate the number of illegal endangered species being bought and sold worldwide. This registration of bobcats is the only method the WGFD uses to monitor bobcat populations in the state. For a single $44 license, a trapper can trap as many bobcats as possible and then sell the pelts for personal profit. We propose that this species is worth much more alive than dead and should be managed with quotas and limits.

Read more about the economic value of live bobcats on Wyoming Untrapped

The post Bobcat Economic Value Study appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

A bobcat’s economic value depreciates almost 1,000 times the moment you put a bullet in it.

This is not the first study to come to the conclusion that living, breathing wildlife is worth more than steaks, pelts and trophies.

Read the story

The post This bobcat brings in $308,000 a year appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.