ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – New Mexico Game and Fish typically only see a couple cases a year involving illegal traps, but we’re a week into the new year, and they’re already seeing it.

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“Roxy’s Law is doing exactly what New Mexicans hoped it would,” said Chris Smith, southwest wildlife advocate for WildEarth Guardians. “Fewer native wildlife are being brutally killed for private profit and public lands are now safer for New Mexicans and visitors to recreate on with their pets.”

Recently released data from the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish shows a clear decrease in wildlife killed by trappers since the implementation of Roxy’s Law, which bans commercial and recreational trapping across New Mexico public lands.

TrapFree New Mexico has worked diligently to track when New Mexicans and their pets encounter traps on public lands. We collect stories of trap encounters, track media articles, and even have an interactive map of all trapping incidents known to us. Since Roxy’s Law went into effect, negative trapping experiences have dropped to near zero.

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As of April 2022, the Wildlife Conservation and Public Safety Act also known as Roxy’s Law has banned the use of traps, snares and poison for the purposes of capturing wildlife on public land. The law, named after a dog killed by a trap in Northern New Mexico.

“This has been so important for New Mexico to enact for a number of reasons we know that traps, snares, and poisons when used to mass eradicate a wild species or to kill animals for fur to make a profit is cruel and unnecessary,” said Animal Protection Voters of New Mexico Chief Government Affairs Officer, Jessica Johnson.

The National Trappers Association and its New Mexico chapter, along with a group called the Fur Takers of America claim the law unfairly favors Native Americans, allowing them to trap for religious or ceremonial reasons, and that the law violates equal protection clauses of the state U.S. constitutions, but the state disputes all that. “There is a long-standing recognition of respecting Native American religious practices in this country and in the state of New Mexico so that part of the bill is not reinventing the wheel and it’s one of several exceptions that were well vetted,” Johnson said.

The Trappers and their attorneys did not comment on the lawsuit. The lawsuit names the state’s Attorney General and the Department of Game and Fish, both agencies say they are reviewing the lawsuit.

Read and watch on KRQE.com

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“Almost unrecognizable as a dog,” said Mattie Allen, director of communications for Española Humane. “It’s pretty shocking to see a dog come in that is clearly strangulated.”

Rio Arriba County Animal Control officers brought in a seven-month-old puppy with a severely swollen head and an undeniable snare around his neck. The puppy was having a hard time breathing.

A good Samaritan called officers when they saw the dog running just north of Española.

“Fortunately, for this dog, he was able to actually pull the cable from whatever it was attached to and break himself free,” said Allen.

A vet team was able to sedate the dog and cut off the snare.

Two days later, the little guy, temporarily known as Muffin, is looking good as new.

But the incident raises questions about New Mexico’s trapping laws.

“The problem with these snares is that they’re indiscriminate. When you set a snare like that you can trap anything it does not discriminate what type of living being is getting strangled by this thing,” said Allen.

Roxy’s law went into effect last April in New Mexico, making it illegal to use traps, snares, or poisons to capture, hurt, or kill an animal on public lands. It doesn’t apply to private land.

Officers don’t know where exactly Muffin got caught, but advocates say they hope all property owners think twice about snares.

“I do hope that people are not setting these snares to trap dogs,” said Allen.  “It could be any type of wildlife, it could be a cat, it could be your family’s dog, it could be a kid. And it will go around a head and a neck, a foot, a hand, a paw, it doesn’t discriminate.”

Española Humane is taking suggestions for Muffin’s permanent name on its social media pages.

He’s getting neutered and up-to-date on shots and will be up for adoption soon.

Read this article on KOB.com

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Adapted from an interview by Lindsey Botts

January 1, 2023

A few years after moving to a remote area of southern New Mexico, I saw a Sierra Club ad in the local paper. I was a longtime member and thought, “That’s amazing that a Sierra Club group is forming in this rural area!” I joined it and made new friends, but it wasn’t until 2003 that I really became active as a leader.

That year, I was hiking on a winter morning on public land near my home with my two dogs. Suddenly, one of the dogs started pulling on his leash. At the spot he wanted to investigate, there was a hidden steel-jaw trap. It leapt out of the sand when I inadvertently triggered it and slammed shut on air. The dogs and I weren’t hurt, but that moment cleaved my life in two: before trapping and after trapping.

The injustice—that a trapper could legally put me in this dangerous situation and harm my dog—was unconscionable. I shared my story with a Sierra Club friend and mentor when I got home. She said that she had also recently run into a trap on an outing she was leading: A participant’s dog had gotten caught, and it ruined the entire excursion. We were furious. Placing people in harm’s way was wrong, to say nothing of subjecting wildlife to this cruelty. That’s when I began to actively advocate for a trapping ban on public lands.

We started with the New Mexico Game Commission. After several years of us trying—organizing and generating more opposition to traps—they remained unmoved. We felt ridiculed and belittled. It didn’t matter that every year more people submitted comments opposing traps on public land—100, 1,000, then 12,000 written comments didn’t make a difference. While leading an outing myself in 2011, our group came upon a coyote struggling and badly injured in a trap. I vowed to use her picture to publicize the brutality of trapping. She is memorialized as the logo of TrapFreeNM.org, the coalition of conservation and animal protection groups I helped bring together. I never could have done this work alone.

By 2013, our coalition realized that the game commission would not help us, and we needed the legislature to change the law. The resulting bill’s first sponsor was a legislator representing a tourist destination where people enjoy recreating on public lands and where a constituent not only had two dogs that got caught in traps but was also injured herself.

The bill didn’t pass when it was first introduced, but we kept at it. Our state legislature meets only every other year to consider nonbudgetary bills. With every iteration, more people, including legislators, became aware of the injustice of trapping.

Each session brought more public support, more media coverage, and more yes votes. In 2021, the bill passed the state senate floor. We knew it would be close in the house of representatives. After several hours of debate on the house floor, the tally was tied. A bill does not pass on a tie vote. The next two years and all the work ahead flashed before my eyes. But at the last moment, another yes vote was cast by a legislator. One of their constituents had a dog who was killed by a snare in 2018. The bill became known as Roxy’s Law in the dog’s memory. The law went to the governor’s desk. With her signature, 17 years after I started my advocacy, traps and poisons were finally outlawed on New Mexico public lands.

It’s unbelievable that in the 21st century, the archaic and cruel practice of trapping is still allowed. Our opponents ignored us, then laughed at us, then fought us. But finally we, the public, and wildlife won.

Read this article at Sierra

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Thanks to the contributions of thousands of TrapFree New Mexico supporters, November 1, 2022 marks the beginning of a very different and vastly diminished wildlife trapping season in New Mexico. For the first time ever, all public lands will be off-limits to recreational and commercial trapping. Some 32 million acres of the Land of Enchantment will now be free of cruel, indiscriminate steel jaw traps, strangulation snares, body-crushing devices, and deadly poisons. We invite you to celebrate this achievement with us.

Despite the passage of Roxy’s Law, some individuals may choose to trap illegally. We encourage all public lands users to remain vigilant and to report any trap encounters you may have through the Report A Trap form on this website. Please use this form to report traps on public land and spread the word.

REPORT A TRAP ON PUBLIC LANDS

NOTE: If you do come across a trap on public land, document it thoroughly but do not tamper with the trap. For your safety and for the sake of prosecuting illegal trappers, traps need to be left in place and untouched. And if you find a trap on public lands, please also report it to the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. Roxy’s Law will only work if it is enforced.

Sincerely,

The TrapFree New Mexico Team

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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 

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Today’s the day we’ve all been waiting for: Roxy’s Law (the Wildlife Conservation and Public Safety Act) went into effect this morning, making the vast majority of all traps, snares, and poisons illegal on approximately 32 million acres of New Mexico public lands.

This journey began in 2004 and many of you have been with us for years if not the entirety. You have shared trapping stories, written letters to the editor, liked Facebook posts, talked to your friends and neighbors, collected petition signatures, waited for hours at legislative hearings, and been the stubborn advocates this world needs.

In short, you have helped shepherd in a new era for the Land of Enchantment, one that values our native wildlife for their ecological and intrinsic value rather than a paltry price for pelts. You have helped redefine humans’ relationship with wildlife and ushered in an era that regards public lands as a place for recreation and solace, not exploitation and danger.

And you’ve lent your voice to the voiceless wildlife that have, until now, been killed by the thousands every year for private profit.

We may need you to raise your voice again. But for now, we can rejoice in and on New Mexico’s trap-free public lands!

Sincerely,

The TrapFree New Mexico Family

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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 »

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With warmer weather, many of us are reaching for our hiking boots, backpacks, and dog leashes – and we can finally breathe a little easier. That’s because, as of April 1, 2022, we have entered a new era of safe and humane enjoyment of New Mexico’s public lands.

After nearly two decades of work by Animal Protection Voters, allies and grassroots advocates to lobby our state government to restrict the wanton use of traps, snares and poisons, the Wildlife Conservation & Public Safety Act was passed and signed into law in 2021.

Nicknamed “Roxy’s Law” after a dog named Roxy who died in a neck snare during a hike with her family, the new state law prohibits all traps – including leghold traps, “Conibear” body-gripping traps and cage traps – snares, and wildlife poisons on public lands, except when the activity meets a narrow set of exceptions listed in the law. Learn more about the law at TrapsDontBelong.org.

New Mexico now has one of the strongest restrictions on traps, snares and poisons in the country – and for very good reason.

The outdoor recreation industry is an important segment of New Mexico’s economic future, relying considerably on shared use of public lands. Every story told by residents or tourists about their dogs being caught or killed in traps, or about finding suffering or dead wildlife in traps, was a black mark on that future. By the time “Roxy’s Law” was signed into law, our coalition collected roughly 150 reports of terrifying incidents, illegal trapping citations and endangered species captured on public lands.

Wildlife are a crucial part of New Mexico’s ecosystem. The limitless destruction of thousands of wild animals every year, using painful and lethal implements left unattended on public land, no longer fits with modern conservation science and notions of humane wildlife management.

Finally, the use of traps, snares and poisons as a hobby, to profit from the fur trade or as a haphazard way to extinguish animals perceived as a nuisance is simply cruel. Causing an animal unnecessary suffering is unacceptable, especially when more humane alternatives are available.

“Roxy’s Law,” like any law, is only as strong as it is enforced – and all New Mexicans will benefit from a collective awareness of the law and a determination to see it enforced.

• If you find a trap, snare or poison on public land: Note the location and, if possible, take photos. But do not tamper with, remove or destroy the device without authorization. Doing so could be dangerous and would be illegal if the device is allowed under a Roxy’s Law exception.
• If you suspect the device may be illegal, report it to the appropriate law enforcement agency. Only they can investigate an incident, determine illegality, file charges and prosecute violations.
• Call the Animal Cruelty Helpline at 1-877-5-HUMANE (1-877-548-6263). Helpline staff will document the incident and work with you to contact or follow up with law enforcement.

The passage of “Roxy’s Law” was only possible because the majority of New Mexicans persistently pushed for safer, more humane public lands. And the next time you wander along a trail or toward a scenic overlook, with your dog safely in tow, without worry about a trap, snare or poison lurking underfoot – remember to thank the state policymakers who answered the call to action.

For more information, go to apvnm.org

Read this article in the Albuquerque Journal »

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