“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

The post Dog survives brink of death run-in with potentially illegal snare appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

But the way the trial and verdict has been framed is a disservice to the effort to ban cruel traps, snares and poisons across New Mexico’s public lands.

Several media outlets described Roxy’s tragic death as the impetus for passage of the Wildlife Conservation and Public Safety Act, which came to be called “Roxy’s Law.” It is true that Roxy became emblematic of the indiscriminate killing and danger that traps pose on public lands. However, the effort to ban traps from New Mexico public lands had been in the making for years before Roxy was killed.

It was the outcome of tens of thousands of New Mexicans coming to terms with the problems inherent with trapping and working hard to create a new paradigm for wildlife and hikers, hunters, campers and other users of public lands in the Land of Enchantment.

Taking Marty Cordova’s claim that he is a “scapegoat” at face value disregards all of the other pets who have been killed or injured in traps in New Mexico: Ophie, Murphy, Buster, Maxi, Strawberry, Ceniza, Tooli, Nelli, Cruzer, Ivy, Mahlia, Jessie, Joe, Sabina, Kutchin, Jetta, Zero, Toby, Pepper, Bo, Lulu, Ben Funbeast, Sammy, Jaky, Wiley, Beau, (another) Roxy, Ted, Bailey, Pearl, Noodles, Kekoa, Fibel, Ranger, Hopi, Jesse, Nina, Griz, Robin, Greta, Honey and many others unnamed or unknown.

Doing so also fails to account for at least 150,000 native animals that have been killed by trappers since 2008.

Furthermore, Cordova’s assertion — “Trapping is not bad; it’s a means of conservation, just like hunting deer or fishing” — is false. Trapping is not conservation. It is not like hunting deer or fishing. Trapping is cruel, dangerous and indiscriminate. It drains fragile ecosystems of the native species that keep things in balance. It turns wildlife into a commodity to be slaughtered, skinned, tanned and sold. It is deeply unpopular — New Mexicans oppose trapping by a wide margin.

Trapping was not on trial in the case surrounding Roxy’s death. Cordova was. And that seems to have been lost in the coverage. Cordova got his day in court, as is his right. But he was also given a platform from which to espouse the virtues of trapping and make it seem as though him being found not guilty — due at least in part to evidence being lost and photographs being deleted — means that trapping is redeemed.

The New Mexico lawmakers who decided earlier this year to end cruel trapping and poisoning of wildlife on public lands did so after hearing from activists (including sportsmen), scientists and trapping victims for well over a decade. The Wildlife Conservation and Public Safety Act will go into effect in April. It will make the outdoors safer and more accessible to visitors, prevent native animals from suffering and dying from these devices on approximately 32 million acres of public lands, and bring New Mexico’s wildlife policies closer into alignment with the best available science and modern ethics of coexistence.

New Mexico citizens and lawmakers have chosen to relegate public lands trapping and poisoning to the history books for myriad good and valid reasons. Roxy is one of those reasons, and her death became a rallying cry for the cause. Cordova’s not guilty verdict does not undo the progress we’ve made.

Chris Smith is the Southwest Wildlife Advocate for WildEarth Guardians.

Read this article in the Santa Fe New Mexican

The post Not guilty verdict aside, Roxy’s Law still matters appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

This dog was in severe pain, dehydrated and slowly dying. But these two visitors were determined to save her and managed to find a rescue group willing to come out after hours to help. It was early morning before they found her, and she survived-minus several toes.

“Mahlia” was lucky. Mia Tuk wasn’t; neither was Roxy. In 2018 the 8-year-old cattle dog got caught in a trapper’s snare and strangled to death in front of her human companion. Can you imagine this happening to you?

Mia Tuk, a young, endangered Mexican gray wolf, who was being monitored by federal wildlife officials, lost her life in 2015 when she was caught in a trap on public land, and then bludgeoned to death with a shovel by her trapper.

Referred to by many as archaic and cruel, these devices are also indiscriminate, “catching and harming any creature unlucky enough to step on them,” (Kevin Bixby, executive director of Southwest Environmental Center.) Targets become baby animals who die in front of their mommas and vice versa, endangered wildlife (including nearly 50 endangered Mexican wolves trapped since 2002,) birds (including eagles and ravens) and pets.

Victims lay trapped and terrified, starving, dying from infection, dehydration or predation — unless or until the trapper comes back and finishes them off, by bludgeoning for example, to their final death.

In 1994 and 1996 respectively, Arizona and Colorado passed laws banning trapping on public lands. This year, New Mexico has the chance to do the same. On Feb. 2, Senate Bill 32, the Wildlife Conservation and Public Safety Act, also known as “Roxy’s Law,” passed the Senate Conservation Committee by a vote of 7-2.

This bill would outlaw traps, snares and poisons on public lands, with exceptions for humane intervention by state and federal agencies for ecosystem and wildlife management, scientific research and human health and safety. It would also protect sovereign tribal religious and cultural practices. These same exemptions exist in the Arizona and Colorado laws.

We lost more than 8,000 wild animals in New Mexico from 2019 to 2020. Most were killed for their fur and sold to manufacturers in other states. One senator’s secretary told me she’s even heard of people from other states coming here to trap and steal our wildlife.

As a New Mexican, I feel completely disrespected by that, and I couldn’t find a word stronger than “despicable” in the dictionary to describe it. Janet Evans, chairwoman during the 1994 ruling in Arizona stated, “It should not be our responsibility to provide the raw materials for the east coast fur industry at the expense of wildlife diversity on our land.”

A former trapper from Santa Cruz County in Arizona declared, “Trapping is an archaic form of animal harvest and should be eliminated.”

Many hunters and fishers alike also despise the practice of trapping, believing it casts a black mark on their reputation and ethics.

While reading the stories, history and debates around this issue, I noted the arguments against these laws were founded not on science or truth, but on a plethora of thinking errors, like assuming, wishful thinking, denial and justification. For example: “Trappers help manage wildlife populations by preventing overpopulation.” Truth: traps are indiscriminate — there is no intention. They trap anything and everything, and may actually result in “mismanagement of wildlife populations” (Garrett Vene Klasen, New Mexico Wild.)

“Trappers help limit the spread of disease.” Truth: again, traps don’t target any creature in particular, sick or well. Moreover, a sick animal that is eaten by another may actually spread disease further.

“Trapping is part of our “heritage.” Truth: So was owning slaves. We finally figured out that wasn’t ethical either.

Richard McKee, of the Sierra Club, called trapping “a cruel and unnecessary hobby,” adding that most don’t rely on trapping for their livelihood. Surely, when your hobby causes suffering and death, it’s time to find a new hobby.

Roxy’s Law will help make our beautiful state safer for us, and for the tourists we hope will help our economy recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. But our slogan must not include, “Beware of traps, snares and poison …”

We need Roxy’s Law to pass. Visit APVNM.org/NoTraps to learn more about Roxy’s Law and how you can contact and inspire your lawmakers to vote yes! Thank you, and be well.

Read this article in the Valencia County News-Bulletin »

The post Making New Mexico safer with Roxy’s Law appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

Santa Fe, NM 

We share this video from New York because animals in New Mexico experience the exact same torture when caught in the same cruel traps that are legal in both states and many others. The good samaritan encountered the coyote while hiking on public lands and discovered the unfortunate animal had both front legs caught in a trap. Fortunately, the hiker was able to free the animal from the leghold trap. During New Mexico’s current trapping season, this same traumatic experience has occurred at least seven times to animals and people hiking on public lands. In six cases, the hikers’ own dogs were cruelly trapped. In another incident, hikers encountered a lone dog struggling in a leghold trap.

“No one—neither residents nor visitors to the Land of Enchantment—should have to encounter the excruciating experience of a wild or companion animal maimed or killed by traps, snares or poisons,” said Michelle Lute, National Carnivore Conservation Manager for Project Coyote. “It’s 2021 and well past time to finally end the egregious and cruel practice of trapping.”

“There’s disconnect, for many people, about what large-scale private trapping means,” said Chris Smith, Southern Rockies Wildlife Advocate for WildEarth Guardians. “For every one of the 150,000 animals killed since 2008, there is a story like this one. A story of a desperate or maimed living being on its way to a cruel death.”

The good samaritan remains anonymous because, despite the clearly heroic act, rescuing a trapped animal and tampering with a trap is technically against the law in many states. Other laws governing trapping regulations, such as trap check durations and distance from roads and trails, are rarely if ever enforced.

ASK YOUR NEW MEXICO LEGISLATORS TO SUPPORT SB 32 “ROXY’S LAW”

Roxy’s Law has been introduced as Senate Bill 32. If the proposed legislation does not become law, the video will continue to be illustrative of how to save your dog or a wild animal from archaic and cruel traps. If successful, this important legislation will prevent future residents and visitors from the traumatic experience of encountering traps on New Mexico’s public lands and save countless animal lives. To read more about SB 32, click here.

The post Video Released Showing the Excruciating Experience of Rescuing a Coyote Caught in a Trap appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

The post Recent incidents highlight trapping as a statewide problem appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

A dog name Joe encountered a leghold trap near Veguita, NM this spring. When Joe arrived at our vet on Friday he was ripped up from head to tail. Joe underwent three hours of emergency surgery to clean and sew up the bite wounds and sew bottom skin and bone together to reconstruct some sort of jaw for him.

Joe came to Argos Rescue on Friday. It’s gut wrenching to imagine the trauma and pain this boy has gone through. Scrounging for food most likely, at some point Joe came in contact with a baited leg hold trap. He lost most of his lower jaw and suffered awful wounds as other animals attacked him. 

The post Another Horrible Trap Incident Mutilates Dog appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

Click on images to enlarge

The post Another Victim of Trapping Torture appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

Current regulations allow trappers to set as many traps and kill as many animals as they want for a fee of just $20. It is an absurd claim that unlimited, indiscriminate killing could be part of scientifically informed modern wildlife management. Polls shows that some 70% of New Mexicans oppose trapping on public lands. Our neighboring states of Arizona and Colorado banned traps 25 years ago and more than 100 countries worldwide have banned traps due to their extreme cruelty. Despite clearly articulated public opposition, the Game Department continues to promote this deadly activity.

The governor-appointed Game Commission and the Game Department it oversees continue to demonstrate a disturbing degree of disregard for their constituents, the people of New Mexico, the vast majority of whom are non-consumptive wildlife users. During a recent rule-making process, the Game Commission received thousands of comments requesting a ban on public land trapping. These requests have been flatly ignored. Wildlife policies that lack broad public support lack legitimacy. By ignoring public opinion, the Game Commission betrays core principles of good governance and the wildlife resource it exists to protect.

Endangered Mexican wolves continue to be caught in traps set for coyotes with disturbing frequency and devastating results. Since their reintroduction, at least 39 wolves, including pups, are known to have been caught, maimed or killed by traps. For a wild population of just 131 individuals, traps pose a grave threat to recovery. The Game Department is well aware of this, but refuses to close wolf recovery areas to trapping. Both wolves and coyotes are critical to ecological health. By allowing their destruction, the Game Department exhibits an obscene hostility for the recovery of endangered species and a profound disregard for basic ecology.

The Game Department portrays itself as the ultimate scientific and ethical authority over wildlife in New Mexico, but this is the same Game Department that did nothing to stop coyote killing contests. The state legislature had to step in and stop the slaughter. The Game Department states that only “fair chase” hunting is ethical, but killing trapped animals can hardly be considered fair chase. The Department claims to uphold the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation, which states that wildlife should be protected from commercial exploitation. But the fur from animals trapped and killed in New Mexico is regularly sold in commercial statewide auctions. This is a direct violation of the wildlife ethics the Department claims to uphold.

Another trapping season is upon us. From Nov. 1 until March 15, an estimated 25,000 animals will die horrible, prolonged deaths in icy, limb-crushing steel jaw traps and strangulation snares. This wanton waste of wildlife serves no constructive purpose and is obscenely out of place in modern society; 99.9% of New Mexicans do not trap and do not want their wildlife reduced to skinned, rotting carcass piles. Tradition can be no excuse for abuse. Given the merciless, indiscriminate destruction the traps inflict, banning them from public lands is both sorely needed and long overdue.

Governance should help us solve our problems, not perpetuate them. When a state agency actively ignores its constituents, there’s a real problem. This is the governor’s appointed Game Commission. If you don’t like their policies, the governor needs to hear from you: https://www.governor.state.nm.us/contact-the-governor/.

Read this Guest Column in the Albuquerque Journal »

The post Speak out to oppose trapping on public lands appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

This letter was published in the Santa Fe New Mexican on December 10, 2019

New Mexico has a problem with traps on public lands. The ongoing destruction inflicted by hidden, baited, steel jaw traps is well-documented. Public lands users, companion animals and wildlife, including endangered species, continue to suffer the harm from these cruel, indiscriminate devices. In response to this crisis, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish has proposed closing 0.5 percent of New Mexico’s public lands to trapping.

The post Letter to the Editor: Statewide Traps 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 »

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