New Mexico is joining a handful of Western states that have limited trapping on public lands, with supporters saying the move will help protect endangered species such as the Mexican gray wolf and prevent household pets from walking into traps amid efforts to promote outdoor recreation and tourism.

The New Mexico measure, dubbed “Roxy’s Law,” was approved in 2021 following several failed attempts by animal advocates over the years to rein in a practice they have described as archaic and indiscriminate.

Chris Smith with the group WildEarth Guardians was among those who lobbied for the change. He called the law a momentous win for public lands and wildlife, saying it marks a shift away from seeing native animals as a nuisance.

“Native species are critical to ecosystems and cultures alike; and we are finally protecting and respecting them accordingly,” Smith said in a statement.

Trapping and snaring triggered emotionally charged debates during legislative sessions and state Game Commission meetings, with proponents and critics often being separated by a rural-urban divide.

Rural residents and wildlife conservation officers had argued that trapping was an important tool for managing wildlife and protecting livestock. They unsuccessfully pleaded with lawmakers to allow more time for rules that were adopted by state wildlife managers in 2020 to work before imposing the sweeping trapping ban.

The law allows continued use of traps on public lands for purposes of scientific research, ecosystem management and rodent control. It also exempts Native American religious observances that may involve harvesting wildlife.

The law does not affect activity on private property or apply to Native American lands.

Violating the statute can result in a misdemeanor, with each trap, snare or poison application constituting a single violation of the law.

Following the 2020-2021 trapping season, environmentalists and animal advocates had counted at least nine dogs that had been caught in privately set traps and snares on public land in northern New Mexico. In February, a dog walking with its owner was caught in a snare and leg hold trap near the community of El Rito.

California and Washington have limits on trapping, but advocates say New Mexico is joining neighboring Arizona and Colorado with more restrictive rules.

In Colorado, a constitutional amendment in 1997 prohibited trapping, snares and poison on public and private land — though 30-day exceptions are granted when landowners show that livestock or crop damage can’t be prevented by sanctioned or non-lethal methods. Arizona in the 1990s banned the use of foothold traps and snares on public land with few exceptions.

Read this article on KRQE.com 

The post Trapping ban to take effect on public lands in New Mexico appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

Along with Roxy’s Law, New Mexico has recently taken other meaningful steps toward protecting wildlife. In 2019, the state banned gruesome coyote-killing contests, events that reward indiscriminate and senseless massacres. Currently, the state is rolling out its plan for projects to protect wildlife from vehicle collisions along heavily used movement and migration corridors.

These are signs of a new era across the Land of Enchantment. An era in which coexistence is the norm, exploitation and cruelty are waning, and native foxes, bobcats, beavers, badgers, and wolves are revered for their ecological roles and honored for their intrinsic value, not persecuted as inconveniences. We are leaving behind nearly two hundred years of primarily viewing wildlife as merely something to slaughter and sell.

Still, New Mexico isn’t yet the beacon of wildlife management that it should be:

+ A memorial urging the federal government to tackle the biodiversity crisis died without a vote on the state Senate floor last month.

+ Our Game Commission has been a merry-go-round as the governor appoints and fires commissioners at her whim. Yet she has let a year elapse since the tragic passing of David Soules without appointing anyone to the conservation position on the commission. Without stability on the commission, it’s unclear where needed leadership will come from.

+ The state is still on record opposing Mexican wolf restoration in the Southern Rockies, where lobos belong and where scientists say they need to live in order to fully recover.

Congress seems poised to pass the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act (“RAWA,” co-sponsored by Sen. Heinrich), which could provide funding to states to protect nongame wildlife. But our wildlife agency doesn’t even have the authority to manage or protect many species, including the Gunnison’s prairie dog, the Rio Grande sucker, and 23 of New Mexico’s 26 bat species, just to name a few. And they don’t want that responsibility; they want to continue to focus on the fraction of animals that are pursued and killed by sportsmen.

RAWA could be the inflection point New Mexico needs. Bold leadership is required to modernize the Department of Game and Fish. So, let’s remember there’s a lot of work still to do and progress to be made:

+ We need a comprehensive state wildlife agency more invested in protecting all wildlife, not focused only on game species like elk and nonnative rainbow trout.

+ We need a wildlife agency that sees all New Mexicans as stakeholders, not one that caters only to the minority of New Mexicans, who, like me, buy hunting and fishing licenses.

+ We need a wildlife agency with the authority, will, and revenue to manage and protect the many wildlife species in our state.

Roxy’s Law alone is worth celebrating, of course. But it also represents a critical marker on New Mexico’s path to reimagining how we perceive and live with the wildlife that makes this place special. Let’s take the next step and push for a state wildlife agency that serves all the people and wildlife of New Mexico.

Chris Smith is the Southern Rockies Wildlife Advocate with WildEarth Guardians. 

Read this article in Counterpunch »

The post New Mexico Teeters on Edge of a New Era of CoExistence: Trapping Ban on Public Lands Goes into Effect April 1 appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

MILESTONE MOMENT FOR NEW MEXICO’S ANIMALS

SANTA FE, N.M.—Last night, by a vote of 35-34, the New Mexico House of Representatives passed Senate Bill (SB) 32, the Wildlife Conservation and Public Safety Act, aka “Roxy’s Law,” sponsored by Senator Bobby Gonzales (D-Ranchos de Taos) and Senator Brenda McKenna (D- Corrales) in the Senate and Representative Matthew McQueen (D-Galisteo) and Representative Christine Chandler (D-Los Alamos).

SB 32 prohibits the use of traps, snares, and poisons on public lands (with several important exemptions). Having passed the New Mexico Senate by a vote of 23-16 last month, Senate Bill 32 now advances to the desk of Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham.

“I am proud that we have passed Senate Bill 32 to end an archaic, cruel, and unnecessary practice on public lands,” said Representative Matthew McQueen. “I am grateful for the support of my colleagues and my co-sponsors for shepherding Senate Bill 32 through to the Governor’s desk. This bill is supported by the majority of New Mexicans and will contribute to New Mexico’s bright outdoor recreation future.”

“Tonight’s final vote to ban leg-hold traps, snares, and poisons on New Mexico public lands is historic. Starting April 1, 2022, we will know there will be fewer wolves, dogs, coyotes, cats, elk, fox, birds, beavers, and other animals that will experience terror, pain, permanent injury, and even death,” said Senator Brenda McKenna. “We will not read about people retelling their excruciating experiences of trying to free their four-legged family members from the devices that are designed to incapacitate while they are on a hike at any of our public federal, state, or municipal lands. I thank the bill co-sponsors, wildlife scientists, and dedicated advocates who helped carry the baton to the finish line.”

Animal Protection Voters, WildEarth Guardians, and the members of the TrapFree New Mexico coalition commend the New Mexico Legislature for passing SB 32, a culmination of decades- long work to draw attention to and to restrict the ability for private individuals to take and sell unlimited numbers of New Mexican wildlife for their own personal, commercial gain and to do so through barbaric, outdated methods, causing suffering, and mortal danger to wildlife, companion animals, and the general public.

“We are grateful to New Mexico legislators for taking this momentous step forward to make New Mexico’s public lands safer, more humane, more ethical, and more beautiful,” said Jessica Johnson, APV’s Chief Government Affairs Officer. “The Wildlife Conservation & Public Safety Act has received support from New Mexicans of all walks of life.”

Traps, snares, and poisons are indiscriminate, able to injure or kill non-target animals unlucky enough to trigger the devices. Nearly 150,000 native creatures have been killed by private trappers since 2008 including the endangered Mexican gray wolf called Mia Tuk who was caught in a trap and bludgeoned to death by a trapper in 2015. At least two wolves have been injured in traps in New Mexico in the past 6 months.

The victims of trapping, snares, and poisons on public lands include more animals than the fur-bearing or destructive wildlife the devices are nominally set to ensnare. Roxy’s Law was named in honor of a beloved dog who, in 2018, was strangled to death by a trapper’s snare while hiking with her human. Since the 2020-2021 trapping season began, at least 9 dogs been caught in privately set traps and snares on public land. The most recent incidents occurred near Abeyta, Pecos, Rowe Mesa, Cloudcroft, and Dixon and don’t include the unknown numbers who are not reported or tragically never found.

APV celebrates last night’s vote with other organizations who have supported and worked to pass SB 32, including the Center for Biological Diversity, Conservation Voters New Mexico, Defenders of Wildlife, the Endangered Species Coalition, New Mexico Wild Action Fund, New Mexico Veterinary Medical Association, Project Coyote, the Southwest Environmental Center, the Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club, and WildEarth Guardians.

Additional Quotes From Sponsoring Organizations:

“The legislature’s thoughtful and humane vote will spare so many vulnerable animals,” said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity in Silver City. “Bobcats, foxes, badgers and ringtails play vital ecological roles and don’t deserve horrific deaths just so their pelts can be sold internationally. And I’m particularly grateful that banning these traps means we won’t see any new three-legged Mexican wolves limping through the Gila National Forest.”

“New Mexico’s wildlife is held in the public trust, yet it is currently being stripped from public lands, for private profit. SB 32 is a common-sense solution that allows the public to hunt, fish, hike and work on publicly owned lands without the danger of steel traps, snares, and poisons,” said Greg Peters, Public Lands & Wildlife Advocate, Conservation Voters New Mexico. “This bill allows New Mexico to modernize the state’s trapping regulations and adopt a progressive level of coexistence with wildlife, leading to a safer, more equitable approach to management of our natural resources. We are thankful for the leadership of the bill’s sponsors and for the support from House and Senate members who voted to pass this long-needed legislation.”

“The passage of Roxy’s Law is a victory for the recovery efforts of endangered Mexican grey wolves, and a huge win for the gente of New Mexico and their safety while enjoying public lands,” said Eddie Estrada, New Mexico Field Representative, Endangered Species Coalition.

“New Mexico Wild supports the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation, which promotes the principles that wildlife is held in public trust, should not be commercialized, should be managed scientifically, and should not be used frivolously. The use of traps on public lands is inconsistent with that model,” said Mark Allison, Executive Director of New Mexico Wild. “Traps have the potential to indiscriminately catch, maim, or kill domestic pets and wildlife that are not intended to be caught, including the Mexican gray wolf. New Mexico needs to fully commit itself to implementing a science-driven, holistic, 21st century stewardship model for all wildlife and we are proud to support SB 32.”

“With this momentous legislation prohibiting traps, snares and poisons, the Land of Enchantment has joined a class of enlightenment along with more than 80 countries and a handful of other US states,” said Michelle Lute, PhD in wildlife science and National Carnivore Conservation Manager for Project Coyote. “Thanks to the support of many champions for this bill from across New Mexico, wildlife management in our state is now more enlightened, science-based and effective in protecting wildlife and healthy ecosystems.”

“We are so proud that the New Mexico legislature stood up for compassion, wildlife conservation, and public safety with the passage of Roxy’s law and we fervently hope the Governor will now sign the bill into law recognizing the wishes of the majority of New Mexicans and bringing our state into line with our neighboring Arizona and Colorado,” said Mary Katherine Ray, Wildlife Chair for the Rio Grande Chapter Sierra Club.

“We are overwhelmed with gratitude for the legislators who supported this legislation and recognize the importance of safe and accessible public lands and the need to respect native wildlife on those lands,” said Chris Smith, southern Rockies wildlife advocate for WildEarth Guardians. “We look forward to Governor Lujan Grisham finalizing this bill’s journey and boosting New Mexico’s reputation with better wildlife policy.”

The post Senate Bill 32 AKA “ROXY’S LAW” Passes the NM House appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

My entire life, identity and work has centered around New Mexico’s incredible array of public lands and the diverse wildlife inhabiting those lands. We New Mexicans are truly blessed. It’s no surprise that so many of us, including myself, flock to the soul-nourishing outdoors seeking respite from the pandemic.

Our public lands, and the wildlife they support, are integral to New Mexico’s culture, history, ecosystems and economy. They are the present and future of a sustainable outdoor recreation economy. They anchor functioning ecosystems. And without wildlife, these landscapes are much-diminished.

I’m a third-generation hunter and angler, and I feed my family with the fish and game I harvest each year. One activity I do not partake in nor support on public lands is trapping. Trapping is a leftover from a bygone era when commercial hunting and trapping decimated wildlife populations. Current laws allow trappers to place unlimited numbers of traps on public lands and take unlimited numbers of furbearing species under minimal regulations to sell their pelts in commercial markets.

Both New Mexico law, which prohibits the sale of game animals taken by hunters, and the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation – held in high esteem by many wildlife managers and sportsmen like myself – wisely prohibit commercial exploitation of wildlife today. Trapping remains a rare and inexplicable exception, putting our own enjoyment of wildlife and public lands at risk.

The fatal flaw with traps and snares on public lands is that they all have the potential to indiscriminately catch, maim or kill wildlife and domestic pets that are not intended to be caught. A prime example are the 43 critically endangered Mexican wolves accidently trapped in New Mexico since 2002. Many wolves suffered amputations or death due to the traps. The potential for mismanagement of wildlife populations and increased mishaps with pet owners is simply too great to continue utilizing trapping as a legitimate method of wildlife stewardship.

There are specific instances where individual animals are causing serious and possibly life- or property-threatening damage or depredation. There are also specific instances where state or federal wildlife managers are trying to re-introduce threatened or endangered species and need to control species adversely impacting reintroduction efforts. In these special cases, wildlife professionals should still use certain types of trapping – if deemed absolutely necessary – on a limited basis.

But statewide commercial fur trapping on our public lands undermines every hunter, hiker, angler, backpacker, wildlife watcher – every other safe and prosperous use of public lands.

New Mexico’s diverse wildlife enlivens our landscapes. Native species keep plant and wildlife communities in balance. They clean our water and recycle nutrients in our soils. Wildlife populates the stories that we tell our kids and the legends around which we build our cultures. Hunters and anglers ethically take carefully managed game species with reverence so that we can have meat in our freezers, but not money in our pockets. Wildlife is there for all New Mexicans to enjoy, whether we see and hear them or we simply benefit from their quiet work to make our ecosystems function.

The widescale, unlimited trapping and killing of native species runs counter to all of this. And when a few people stand to profit at the expense of the whole, that is wrong, undemocratic and unjust.

The day of recreational trapping in my mind should come to an end in New Mexico. As an avid hunter and conservationist, the only purpose trapping serves is to give a black eye to sportsmen’s and sportswomen’s reputations. I want the court of public opinion to view us as ethical, humane and responsible.

That’s why I support state legislation called “Roxy’s Law,” Senate Bill 32, which would restrict private commercial use of traps and snares on public lands, and help not only protect people, but also the health of our ecosystems.

Trapping simple doesn’t fit into New Mexico’s future. It’s time for Roxy’s Law to pass.

Read the Guest Column in the Albuquerque Journal »

The post It’s time to end trapping in New Mexico appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

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 »

The post Albuquerque Journal Editorial: Nothing about traps is New Mexico True appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

Many people are surprised to learn that fur trapping—the exploitative relic of the 1800s—still goes on today in our crowded, fragile world. Worse, the steel-jawed devices and wire neck-snares that trappers still use can be hidden on our public lands, including national forests, Bureau of Land Management and state trust lands, where they may harm hikers, wildlife watchers and others. Trappers seek to profit from the capture and killing of the public’s wildlife—animals like bobcats, foxes, coyotes and badgers—by selling their pelts into the international market. But, every year in New Mexico, traps also slam shut on unintended victims: dogs walking with their people, birds like ravens and even endangered species like the Mexican wolf.

So far in only the four weeks that the trapping season has been open in New Mexico this year, three dogs have been ensnared. And those are only the incidents we at TrapFree New Mexico know about. There is no database or official place to report these traumas, so the actual figure is likely much higher.

Sometimes the owners can act quickly and are able to extricate their dog with a minimum of injury, which almost always involves the dog’s screaming in pain, swelling where the trap landed and biting of the rescuers. On Thanksgiving Day, when a hiker’s highly trained search-and-rescue dog was trapped near Jemez Springs, people got her out with difficulty, but after only a short time. Thankfully, the incident occurred on a walk for pleasure, not a search mission.

The weekend before that, hikers stumbled upon a dog that did not belong to them, languishing in a steel leg-trap in northern Santa Fe County. The only way they could tell the dog was still alive was that she blinked when they approached. They were unable to remove the trap and, after giving the animal water and turkey jerky, had to leave it alone overnight before they could get help. Imagine the torment of having to walk away from an animal in agony.

At first light the next morning, a NMDog rescue party made the two-hour hike back to the dog, expecting the worst. Miraculously Mahlia was still alive. She’s going to be okay after several thousand dollars in veterinary expenses that included surgery to amputate the destroyed part of her foot. The trapper is not required to pay these expenses.

In the case of wire neck-snares, the outcome can be much more tragic. In 2018, a hiker held his ensnared dog, Roxy, while she suffocated to death in his arms. He was unable to figure out how to work the release mechanism of the wire crushing her windpipe in time to save her.

That year, a bill was introduced at the state legislature that prohibited the setting of traps and poisons on New Mexico public lands. The bill was fittingly named “Roxy’s law.” It passed both of its House of Representative committees, but did not make it to the floor before the session expired. Similar legislation had been introduced three times previously, but had never progressed even that far.

Surely the time has come to end the awful carnage traps inflict, not just on companion animals, but also on our native wildlife. Despite repeatedly asking the New Mexico State Game Commission to better regulate traps, this past year the commission adopted only an incremental change that increased the distance where a trap can be set near an official trailhead or campground to one half-mile. Traps can still be placed a mere 25 yards from an official trail or road. User-created roads or wildlife trails don’t meet the definition for even that modest restriction.

There are still no bag limits on any “furbearing” species. Trappers can kill an unlimited number of bobcats or foxes or coyotes. This is why a hiker in Doña Ana County was horrified to come across dozens of skinned and dumped coyote carcasses the Friday before Thanksgiving. It looked like a scene from a horror movie. Trapping dismisses the importance these animals have in nature in maintaining the balance of the food web. The attitude that they are expendable is ignorant and arrogant.

Our neighboring state of Arizona passed a measure banning traps and poisons on public lands more than 25 years ago. Colorado to our north adopted a complete statewide ban on these devices a couple of years later. Statewide bans also exist in California and Washington state and a few states in the East. New Mexico depends on tourism revenue, and we are at a distinct disadvantage when we place visitors wishing to explore the Land of Enchantment in harm’s way. Especially now during the pandemic, when being outdoors is one of the safest forms of recreation still available to us, the continuing assault caused by hidden traps is unforgivable.

The legislature meets again in January. Will this be the year our public lands become trap free? You can help to make that happen. Please visit trapfreenm.org to learn more, sign our  petition and contact your state senator and representative. (You can find their names and contact information at www.nmlegis.gov.) Ask them to support Roxy’s law. A hike on our public lands should not end in trauma or tragedy. The animal species that “bear fur” have value to nature far and above their pelt price.

Read the Guest Column in the Sierra County Sun »

The post Sierra County Sun: New Mexico: Land of Entrapment appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

On November 14, just one week later, a Mexican gray wolf pup was caught and injured in a leghold trap that had been set in the Gila National Forest. A second wolf pup was later spotted with a piece of another leghold trap still attached to its injured paw.

Nine months earlier, four other wolves were caught in traps in the same area. One of those wolves died, while another had its leg amputated. The third wolf had two legs caught in two different traps. It and the fourth wolf were unharmed and ultimately released back into the wild.

The most recent incident prompted renewed calls by conservation groups for the state to ban trapping on public lands. State law allows private trapping on public lands, a practice that WildEarth Guardians’ southern Rockies wildlife advocate Chris Smith described as archaic and at odds with the state’s recent MoU.

Smith said the last month has demonstrated the department’s inconsistency on wolf recovery. “We want to recover wolves, we’re going to rejoin the Mexican wolf recovery effort, but our policies on the ground are going to continue to harm wolves,” Smith said. “That’s a big inconsistency that the department has to be dealt with.”

Residents speak out against trapping

Smith and other advocates have been working across multiple fronts to ban trapping on public lands for a number of years. TrapFree NM, a coalition of conservation groups like WildEarth Guardians that are advocating for bans on trapping, has been organizing at the community level on the issue since 2011.

And public support for the ban across the state seems to be growing. A 2015 poll found that 69 percent of New Mexicans surveyed said they oppose steel-jawed leghold traps or snare traps. More recently, residents have brought their concerns about trapping to official state bodies like the legislature and the Game and Fish department.

The issue reached a fever pitch during the state legislative session earlier this year, when a bill to ban trapping on public lands was passed through two committees before dying on the House floor. The bill was dubbed Roxy’s Law after a pet dog that was caught and suffocated to death as her owner frantically tried to release the trap.

The proposed ban has been introduced to the legislature in some form for the past two years, but Roxy’s bill advanced further through the House than any previous trapping ban bill, which Smith said was encouraging.

Conservation organizations are now focusing their efforts on the state Game Commission, which is currently considering rule changes governing trapping. TrapFree NM released an interactive map detailing incidents were companion animals and endangered species have been caught in traps. It identifies over 78 trapping incidents that have occurred since 2015. Op-eds appeared in newspapers across the state that decried the practice and recounted details of personal experiences with traps and pets, while residents who have had pets trapped attended public comment meetings to recount their experiences and express their support of a ban.

TrapFree NM released this trapping map in November. The map uses data from New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, TrapFree New Mexico incident reports, and media coverage. Source: TrapFree NM

Game and Fish held four public meetings across the state in October and collected 2,400 public comments on the issue. Amidst an outpouring of support for a trapping ban, Smith said the department’s proposed rule changes still fall short.

“What we’ve seen over the last two months is that there’s a tiny subset of the New Mexico population that supports trapping, and their opinion, for a number of reasons, carries more weight than 70 percent of the population in the minds of the Department of Game and Fish staff and the Game Commissioners,” Smith said. “What’s the point of a big public process, with nearly 2,500 public comments and all these hearings, if there’s not going to be any changes made based on those comments?”

New rules for trapping furbearers

A few months after Roxy’s bill died in the state House, Game and Fish released a set of proposed changes to the state’s furbearer and trapping rule. Those changes include adding more restrictions to where trappers can place land set traps and banning traps outright in four areas of public lands near Las Cruces, Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos.

Those areas were chosen “where the potential for human recreation and conflict could have existed,” said Stewart Liley, chief of NMDGF’s Wildlife Management Division. One of the areas is the Sandia Ranger District of the National Forest, where a few pets have been trapped, Liley said. The new rules would also prohibit traps being set within a half-mile radius from any designated trailhead on public land.

“So in effect we’re closing down those points of access for high recreation in to any designated trailhead across the state, whether that be the BLM or Forest Service or any of those kind of places on public land,” Liley said. “I would say that’s one of the bigger closures.”

But Liley pointed to the proposed mandatory “due care” provisions for trapping as being a key component to the new rules aimed at helping Mexican gray wolves. Due care refers to steps taken by the trapper to ensure the animal isn’t hurt, including following all guidelines and recommendations provided by the department, taking precautions to ensure the animal cannot escape the trap, and reporting the capture of the animal to the interagency field team.

“It was in the recommendation guidelines in our previous rule. We are actually proposing making it mandatory for every trapper across the state, regardless if it’s in a Mexican wolf area or not,” Liley said. He added that such provisions mirror requirements used at Fish and Wildlife Service to capture wolves for radio collaring.

“We’re making that mandatory across the state for people to follow those provisions so that we can get into best management practices, and lessen the potential for injury of the animals for when they are caught,” he said.

Enforcement of the state’s trapping rules is another question. Protocol requires a trapper to notify the authorities if a protected species is caught. But trappers are less incentivized to report these episodes when they are engaging in illegal behavior.

Ty Jackson, captain of field operations for NMDGF, said the department uses a variety of methods to enforce trapping rules.

“Our officers receive training in how to find trap locations, and our officers live in these communities, so often they know these individuals personally, and they know when people are out and where they’re going,” Jackson told NM Political Report. “Obviously we don’t catch every single thing. We rely on the public to report those.”

Both Liley and Jackson said the public should promptly report any trapping incidents to NMDGF when they occur to help combat illegal trapping activity.

“We receive very few reports a year [of trapping incidents]. Sometimes it’s less than 10, sometimes it less than five,” Liley said.

“From a law enforcement perspective, that has been the largest hindrance to these investigations,” Jackson said. “A lot of times they’re not reported until way after the fact, and we can’t verify anything, or whether the event even occurred.”

Investigation is ongoing in wolf pups case

Illegal trapping activity occurred in some of the recent high-profile trapping incidents, like the death of Roxy. In that case, a man was charged with 34 criminal counts for illegal trapping. All of those charges were later dropped by a judge due to mistakes made by Game and Fish during the investigation.

Legal traps can also catch unintended or protected animals. The traps that caught the four Mexican gray wolves in February, for example, were all legal. Trapping opponents argue that no amount of rules or regulations can fully prevent pets and protected species from traps.

Legal or not, trapping incidents can have outsized impacts for the Mexican gray wolf species, whose population is currently just 131 individuals across New Mexico and Arizona. A total of 39 Mexican gray wolves have been caught, injured or killed in traps since the species was reintroduced in the state in 1998.

“Some of those wolves have been fine, some of those have died, some have had amputations, and some of them, their fate is unknown,” Smith told NM Political Report. “That’s a serious impact on this tiny population.”

As for the two wolf pups, Jackson said the department is now conducting an investigation into the incident.

“We believe that there was some illegal activity, but we can’t talk about the investigation,” he said.

A Fish and Wildlife spokesperson told NM Political Report that the caught pup was treated and released back into the wild on December 5. The agency is still trying to locate the second pup, but said the most recent sighting of the wolf indicated the trap has fallen off the animal’s injured paw.

The state Game Commission will formally vote to accept the furbearer trapping rule changes in early January.

New Mexico Department of Game and Fish asks that anyone involved in a trapping incident to report it to the Operation Game Thief line at 1-800-432-4263, or online. Reports can be made anonymously. 

Read this article in the NM Political Report »

The post Inconsistency at Game and Fish: After state rejoins wolf recovery program, two pups caught in leghold traps appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

Trap Free New Mexico is launching an online interactive map showing where trapping incidents have occurred. Red dots represent locations where dogs were caught in traps, blue dots show where illegal traps were set, yellow dots identify where Mexican gray wolves were caught, while green dots represent other incidents involving traps. (Courtesy Trap Free New Mexico)

Just in time for trapping season, a coalition calling itself Trap Free New Mexico is launching a new online interactive map that tracks incidences of illegal trapping and locations where dogs, Mexican gray wolves and even people have been caught in traps.

Chris Smith, Southern Rockies wildlife advocate for the environmental group WildEarth Guardians, said the map posted on the trapfreenm.org website is intended to raise awareness about trapping activities in New Mexico and the harm they can cause to domestic pets, wildlife and, sometimes, people.

“For us, it’s about three things,” he said. “Empowering New Mexicans who don’t know trapping is going on, is prevalent and a public safety hazard; it’s a tool for when you encounter a trap or your dog steps in a trap to report it so we can get a better scale of trapping activities, and while it doesn’t capture all the thousands of illegal trappings that take place, it shows the toll trapping has had on New Mexico as a whole.”

Read the article in the Albuquerque Journal »

The post Interactive map tracks illegal trapping appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

Ninety-nine and nine-tenths percent of New Mexicans do not trap, and 70 percent of New Mexicans oppose trapping on public lands. Public lands should be safe for everyone to explore and enjoy without the risk of a lethal encounter. It is clear that trapping is incompatible with public safety and that the destruction will not stop until traps are removed from public lands. In light of the ongoing and escalating conflicts, removing traps from public lands is long overdue.

Charles Fox
Santa Fe

Read the Letter to the Editor in the Santa Fe New Mexican »

The post Long overdue 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.