That’s one positive outcome from the tragic death of an Española dog name Roxy — but it’s hard to be optimistic about the new law’s ability to be effective.

Here’s why: The same agency that will investigate violations of the new anti-trapping law, dubbed “Roxy’s Law” — the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish — handled the investigation of Roxy’s death.

In 2018, a neck snare strangled Roxy, a blue heeler mix, near a hiking trail at Santa Cruz Lake Recreation Area north of Española. Marty Cordova, of Chimayó, was charged with 34 counts of illegal trapping activities: 14 counts of unlawful possession of a protected species, 10 counts of failure to mark traps, and five counts each for trapping within 25 yards of a roadway and failure to check traps on a daily basis.

Public attention over Roxy’s death led to a hard-fought campaign to pass the new law, formally known as the Wildlife Conservation and Public Safety Act, which Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed into law last spring after it passed the state House by a single vote.

This month, a jury acquitted Cordova, a Chimayó trapper, of 10 counts of illegal trapping, three years after state officials alleged he set a snare that strangled Roxy.

Cordova’s lawyer, Yvonne K. Quintana, pointed out problems with evidence, including failure to collect snares and traps from the field, and the destruction of photographic evidence.

To be fair, the Game and Fish investigation appeared to be compromised by some Bureau of Land Management procedures. Traps in BLM custody “were not turned over to the Department of Game and Fish, but were destroyed, per their policy, when a case is resolved,” said Jennifer Padgett Macias, 1st Judicial District chief deputy district attorney. Resolved bureaucratically does not mean resolved criminally, folks.

The snare involved in Roxy’s death was destroyed when it was cut off the dog’s body, she said.

The jury found Cordova not guilty of all charges. Would that have been the case had the investigation been without blunders? We’ll never know. But it’s clear wildlife investigators need to do a better job of collecting and safeguarding evidence — or turn it over to someone who can.

And it’s clear the state would have had a much stronger case had Roxy’s Law been in place when she was caught in that snare.

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 editorial in the Albuquerque Journal

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New Mexicans have worked hard over the years to do right by the animals in our state. We have banned cockfighting, horse tripping and coyote-killing contests. We have made dog fighting a fourth-degree felony. We have created a dedicated funding stream for low-cost spay and neuter services.

And now it is time we finally stop allowing the brutal, indiscriminate use of traps on our public lands.

For a paltry $20 permit, members of a small and vocal minority are allowed to litter our amazing public lands with as many leg-hold, body-gripping and cage traps, snares and poisons as they want. There is no limit to the number of animals they can maim and kill. No requirement they take only a certain species or gender or quickly put a suffering animal out of its misery. They can leave their traps unchecked for up to two days as anything suffers in them.

And since Nov. 1, three pet dogs have been caught in these traps (including Jesse, a 2-year-old Dutch shepherd who suffered minimal injuries from a trap in the Jemez National Recreation Area on Thanksgiving, and Mahlia, a black lab who lost many of her toes in a trap in northern Santa Fe County). Meanwhile, a hiker in Doña Ana County found a gruesome pile of more than a dozen skinned coyote carcasses, many with obvious trapping wounds on their legs. A map from TrapFree New Mexico shows incidents of traps catching people, pets and the wrong kind of animal stretch across our national forest, BLM and state trust lands.

Put that on a tourism ad.

The window dressing of “updates” the feckless state Game and Fish Department adopted last year to make trapping more palatable was just that, and real reforms are past due.

Jessica Johnson of Animal Protection Voters New Mexico says that once again, her group and others will advocate for Roxy’s Law, aka the Wildlife Protection and Public Safety Act. (It is named for family dog Roxy, an 8-year-old blue heeler-mix that strangled to death in a neck snare at Santa Cruz Lake in 2018. Her owner desperately, unsuccessfully, tried to save her.)

Versions of this reasonable legislation died in the 2017 and 2019 legislative sessions, so it is important to emphasize again to lawmakers and the public alike that it:

• Pertains only to public land, not private property.
• Does not affect hunting with firearms, archery, fishing or falconry equipment.
• Still allows trapping of mice, rats, pack rats, gophers, prairie dogs, moles, voles, rock squirrels, birds or fish.
• Provides exceptions for bona fide scientific research as well as government agencies to prevent/mitigate threats to human health and safety and address livestock depredation.
• Allows cage traps to capture wildlife and feral and domesticated animals that cause damage to property, crops or livestock, as well as to recover a domesticated animal or trap-neuter-release a feral animal.
• Exempts members of federally recognized Indian nations, tribes and pueblos for religious or ceremonial purposes.

New Mexico has long been an outlier on trapping. Colorado and California have banned it statewide, and Arizona and Washington have banned it on public land. That’s because they recognize trapping is indiscriminate, cruel, threatens recreationists and tourists, kills our threatened and endangered species (at least eight Mexican gray wolves in New Mexico) and, because there are no bag limits, presents a real threat to our already threatened ecosystem.

Trapping is in no way “New Mexico True.” New Mexico needs to make 2021 the year it adds a ban on trapping on public lands to its important list of successful animal and wildlife legislation.

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 Editorial in the Albuquerque Journal »

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New Mexico, that’s where.

Chimayó trapper Marty Cordova was charged with 14 counts of unlawful possession of a protected species, 10 counts of failure to mark traps, and five counts each of trapping within 25 yards of a roadway and failure to check traps on a daily basis. A Santa Fe magistrate judge threw out the evidence and dismissed the case because the New Mexico Game and Fish Department failed to serve Cordova with a search warrant and failed to preserve evidence.

And oh, what evidence it was.

Game and Fish and BLM surveillance camera images captured Cordova and his pickup truck at the Santa Cruz lake trapping site where Roxy, an 8-year-old heeler mix owned by Dave Clark of Española, was strangled in November 2018.

And as reported by the Journal’s T.S. Last on Oct 15, the search of Cordova’s property turned up 10 bobcat skulls and hides from six bobcats, five foxes, a ringtail cat and a badger, all frozen. Those “protected” species can be trapped, but only in season and with a permit. Also found: Cordova’s cellphone, allegedly containing selfies of himself alongside some of the animals caught in traps.

It’s unsettling but not surprising that Game and Fish did not dot its “i”s and cross its “t”s to make the safety of domesticated animals and wildlife a priority. Roxy is just one of the many pets and wild animals New Mexicans have freed from traps and snares on public lands.

Perhaps the officer who forgot to give Cordova a copy of the search warrant affidavit or read him his Miranda rights, as required by law, was just having an off day. Ditto for the officer who tossed out the labeled plastic bags and containers that the carcasses and pelts were found in. And for the officer who deleted select images from the trail cameras.

Three strikes, and once again a safe public landscape in New Mexico is out.

As we wait for state lawmakers to finally grasp that public lands need to be safe for all the public – once again a trapping ban failed to make it out of the Legislature this year – it is all the more important for New Mexicans to weigh in. Proposed trapping rules dance around the gruesome reality that even with the updates it will still be 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.
• Set out traps for coyotes or skunks, classified as unprotected furbearers, without getting a license.

And while it will be clarified it is illegal to take mink, river otter, black-footed ferret, coatimundi and American marten, traps, snares and poisons are as indiscriminate as they are deadly.

Ask Roxy’s owner.

New Mexico is so much better than allowing a vocal minority to inflict needless suffering and brutal deaths on animals in the name of “tradition.” We should live up to being the Land of Enchantment, not the Land of Entrapment.

That’s why New Mexicans need to speak up from 6 to 7:30 Wednesday night at the Department of Game and Fish office, 7816 Alamo Road NW. Or send comments to New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, Attn: Furbearer Rule Development, P.O. Box 25112, Santa Fe, NM, 87504; emailed to dgf-furbearer-rules@state.nm.us.

Read this Editorial in the Albuquerque Journal »

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Before the New Mexico Game and Fish Department’s commission rubber stamps inadequate rules to regulate trapping on public lands, citizens must let officials — especially Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham — know that they want better for animals in New Mexico.

Public meetings already have occurred to discuss proposed rule changes in Raton and Roswell, and another is scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 24, in Las Cruces. The final meeting takes place Wednesday, Oct. 30, in Albuquerque. Written comments can be sent via email to dgf-furbearer-rules@state.nm.us or by regular mail to NM DGF, Attn: Furbearer Rule Development, P.O. Box 25112, Santa Fe, N.M. 87504.

Here’s why the rules need to change. Trapping is cruel, not just for the fur-bearing animals caught, but for the stray family dog, domestic livestock or even the occasional wandering human who ends up in a trap or snare.

For years, New Mexicans from all walks of life have pushed for changes to New Mexico’s antiquated trapping laws. With the election of a Democratic governor with a pro-animal and wildlife bent, there was hope that even before laws could be changed, the Game and Fish Department might adopt sensible rule changes. That doesn’t seem to be happening. The proposed changes to current practices might ban the use of poison and forbid traps and snares in certain high-traffic areas and at trailheads, but those are surface changes.

The rules still would allow few limits on the placement of dangerous steel-jaw traps and snares — by trails and roads and as close as a half-mile to picnic areas, rest areas or campgrounds. The rules place no bag limits on protected fur-bearers, including raccoons, badgers, foxes or bobcats, to name a few. New Mexico trappers won’t need a license to catch the “unprotected” coyotes or skunks. They can be killed all year long. As it is, a trapping license is just $20.

Yes, the rules will make clear what animals can’t be trapped legally — such as a mink or river otter — but we doubt that a trap or snare can differentiate between an animal that is legal to trap and one that isn’t. Trappers don’t even have to post warning signs so public land users can protect kids or pets as they enjoy the outdoors that belongs to all of us.

These rules are unacceptable — and we regret the Legislature’s failure to act over the years to stop the menace of these traps. Something akin to Roxy’s Law — named after a family pet killed in a trap by Santa Cruz Lake — is the best method of stopping the cruelty of trapping. Sadly, Roxy’s Law did not make it out of the state House of Representatives.

New Mexico wants to be a state that cares for its animals, but over the years, the pull of so-called tradition and fear of upsetting certain voters has left in place cruel practices — that’s why it took decades to outlaw coyote-killing contests and cockfighting. It’s time to reform trapping rules.

Read the Editorial in the Santa Fe New Mexican »

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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 »

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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.

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The gruesome manner in which this wolf died is startlingly common and accepted in the fur-trapping trade, and countless other wild animals die every year in nearly the exact same way.

News of the wolf’s death came at the tail end of a brutal New Mexico trapping season. For most species allowed to be trapped, there is no limit to how many can be killed and some can be trapped year-round. The law says practically nothing about permitted killing methods – and because bullets damage valuable pelts, many trappers bludgeon, strangle, suffocate or drown the animals.

Read the Guest Column in the Albuquerque Journal: https://www.abqjournal.com/1189620/nm-trapping-laws-not-in-step-with-nm-values.html

A wolf in the Gila National Forest is caught in a leg-hold trap. The wolf had previously lost one front leg to a leg-hold trap. (Source: New Mexico Game And Fish Department)

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• If you find a wild animal caught in a trap, you can neither free it nor put it out of its misery.
• You can kill as many non-game animals – porcupines, prairie dogs, rabbits, ground squirrels, Himalayan tahrs, skunks, feral hogs, bobcats and coyotes – as you like without a permit, sometimes for cash and fabulous prizes.

Just what does this say about our state?

New Mexico’s government-sponsored animal cruelty came to light again this week when a Placitas man released a fox from a foot-hold trap. The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish told Gary Miles, the founder and owner of Placitas Animal Rescue, who responded to a runner’s call about the fox, that he could be arrested for being in possession of the fox.

Read the Editorial in the Albuquerque Journal:
https://www.abqjournal.com/1117016/trapping-killing-contests-should-have-no-place-in-nm.html

Coyote killing contests in New Mexico

Fox in leg trap near an unpaved section of NM Highway 165 about a half-mile west of the Sandia Man Cave. Photo courtesy: Lauri Dodge

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The first bill is a reworked version of last year’s proposal to ban traps and poisons on public land. It would stop the use of traps – leghold, conibear and snare – as well as poisons including sodium cyanide M-44s and Compound 1080 collars. All are indiscriminate, and all cause painful injuries and excruciating deaths.

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 archaic, cruel and indiscriminate. Poisons, which have accidentally killed badgers, bears, bobcats, foxes, birds and pets, cause equally gruesome outcomes. Yet the New Mexico Game Commission and Department of Game and Fish expanded trapping onto public lands, including state trust lands, last year and removed the permit requirement for cougars. This month the agencies were on the losing end of an anti-trapping lawsuit filed by Animal Protection of New Mexico and the Humane Society of the United States – the departments lost their bid to have the federal court dismiss that suit.

Read the Editorial in the Albuquerque Journal

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