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

The post Roxy’s Law Banning Traps, Snares, and Poisons on New Mexico Public Lands Goes Into Effect appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

Dear TrapFree New Mexico Friends,

We wanted to be sure you saw this alert from TrapFree NM partner, Animal Protection Voters. Click on the link below to send a message right now to your legislators, some of whom have just been elected, asking them to support Roxy’s Law* to prohibit traps and poisons from NM public lands.

*Roxy’s Law is named for a senior cattle dog who was killed in a neck snare set on public land in 2018.

Tell Your Legislators to Support Senate Bill 32 “Roxy’s Law”

Did You Know?

• Every year, steel jaw leghold traps, body-crushing traps, and foot and neck snares are hidden throughout New Mexico’s public lands by trappers hoping to kill thousands of wild animals and make money from furs.
• Trapping is the only state-sanctioned activity that allows private individuals to kill unlimited numbers of wildlife—almost 10,000 a year in New Mexico—and sell their body parts for private commercial profit.
• Some state agencies and counties spend federal, state & local tax dollars to contract with federal wildlife agents to kill many thousands of wild animals with M-44 “cyanide bombs” and other poisons on public lands.

New Mexico tourists and residents enjoy the great outdoors on our public lands with their children, friends, and companion animals. The last thing they want to see is their child injured, or their dog or a beautiful wild animal cruelly caught—or killed—in dangerous, archaic traps. And with climate change making the future of New Mexico’s wild habitat and water uncertain, unlimited taking of wildlife to be sold in commercial markets has the potential to devastate our ecosystem in the coming years.

Urge your New Mexico state legislators to support Roxy’s Law
to ban traps, snares, and poisons on public lands »

The post UPDATE: Please Support Senate Bill 32 (Roxy’s Law) – Urge your New Mexico state legislators to support Roxy’s Law appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The post New report details the many problems of traps on public lands appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

The New Mexico Game Commission approved trapping of bobcats, foxes, and other wildlife throughout the state on January 17. The decision reauthorizes the use of leghold traps, body-crushing traps, and strangulation snares that have killed and maimed endangered Mexican wolves and countless other animals.

The public submitted thousands of comments against the setting of traps, but these comments went ignored.

The Commission’s action makes it clear that it’s now up to the state legislature to respond to public concerns by passing “Roxy’s Law” (an anti-trapping bill named for a dog, Roxy, who died in a trap) in the 2021 legislative session. The bill ran out of time for a floor vote in the state House of Representatives last year.

Read the press release.

The post New Mexico Game Commission approves trapping, disregarding public opposition 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.

Now Queen Elizabeth II is building on her fashion-forward reputation: The 93-year-old monarch will stop buying clothing made with real fur, the queen’s longtime designer and personal assistant wrote in a recently released memoir.

The queen’s confidante, Angela Kelly, wrote, “If Her Majesty is due to attend an engagement in particularly cold weather, from 2019 onward fake fur will be used to make sure she stays warm.”

The mink lining of a coat that Queen Elizabeth II wore to Slovakia in 2008 has been replaced with fake fur, according to Ms. Kelly’s memoir, “The Other Side of the Coin: The Queen, the Dresser and the Wardrobe.”

The move comes as a number of fashion labels such as Prada, Versace and Coach have opted to stop using real fur in their collections.

Buckingham Palace, in a statement issued to news media outlets based in the United Kingdom, confirmed the report — but with a caveat. It pointed out that the queen won’t be ridding her wardrobe of ceremonial robes and other official garments that are lined with fur, and that she could still wear them on occasion.

Humane groups commended the queen for her fashion choice, saying it reflected the mood of the British public toward the use of real fur.

“Our Head of State going fur-free sends a powerful message that fur is firmly out of fashion and does not belong with Brand Britain,” Claire Bass, executive director of Humane Society Internationals U.K. division, said in a statement.

Ms. Bass said the queen’s decision was a boon for the anti-fur movement.

“The U.K. banned fur farming almost two decades ago because it was deemed too cruel, now we must finish the job and ban fur sales too,” Ms. Bass said. “We are calling on the British government to follow Her Majesty’s example and make the U.K. the first country in the world to ban the sale of animal fur.”

The queen, who assumed the throne in 1952 after her father died, has often been photographed wearing fur over the years.

PETA, the animal rights group, also commended the queen for the move.

“The queen’s decision is in line with the many forward-thinking consumers, businesses and nations that are recognizing that innovative faux-fur fabrics are better for the environment and spare animals a miserable life and a bloody, painful death,” the group said.

PETA also renewed its call for the queen’s guard to discontinue its use of bearskin hats and replace them with fake fur.

However, the British Fur Trade Association said in a statement that it was “pleased that the queen will continue to wear fur garments contrary to the claims of certain groups.”

“Natural sustainable fur that is subject to high animal welfare standards is part of the solution to the problem of fast fashion whilst faux alternatives are made from plastics that unlike natural furs are polluting and do not biodegrade and is why people are choosing to wear the real thing,” said Nicholas Dunn-McAfee, public policy and engagement manager for the association.

Read the article in the New York Times »

The post Queen Elizabeth II Will Go Fur Free appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

Nogal resident Kathleen McDonald had climbed about 100 yards into the Lincoln National Forest when Jasper, her Golden retriever Jasper suddenly began yelping and crying.

“I went running down and he was about 200 feet away,” McDonald said. “I was shocked to see him stuck in a trap. He was trying to get out of it and chewing on his leg.

“I finally got it open, it took me about 10 minutes. His paw immediately swelled. He limped on it and hopped down. It was so upsetting. He was whimpering and scared.”

The 2013 incident is one of many highlighted by a recently released interactive map released by TrapFree New Mexico, a coalition of 14 advocacy groups that oppose trapping on public lands, which pinpoints animal trap encounters by domestic pets and other non-target creatures in 22 counties across New Mexico.

The map shows seven incidents in the Alamogordo-Mescalero-Lincoln County area, three near Farmington, one near Carlsbad and eight in the Las Cruces area.

McDonald said a game official who checked the trap that injured Jasper six years ago told her the trapper later was fined $40, because he had not checked the trap within the 24-hour period required. But the officer also warned that she could have been fined, if she had removed the trap, and that she should have kept Jasper on a leash, she said.

“The laws all are on the trappers’ side,” she said. “It’s absurd.”

A dog must be on a leash in developed campgrounds or recreation sites, said Lincoln National Forest public information officer Laura Rabon Monday.

“But outside of those areas, we revert to county ordinance. If it says dogs must be leashed off private property, then dogs must be leashed on the Lincoln National Forest. The national forest covers five different counties, so the answer isn’t simple.”

Lincoln County Sheriff Robert Shepperd said the county has an ordinance governing dogs running at large.

“They must be under the control of the owner with commands,” he said. “If they don’t obey commands and run at large, they must be leashed.”

Trapping for fur bearing animals is allowed throughout the national forest, except for beavers, said Public Information Officer James Pittman with New Mexico Game and Fish.

A ban of traps on public land in New Mexico is long overdue, McDonald said.

The strangulation death of a dog named Roxy at Santa Cruz Lake in November 2018 renewed efforts to ban traps on public lands and brought together the TrapFree New Mexico coalition.

State Reps. Matthew McQueen (D-Galisteo) and Bobby Gonzales (D-Taos) sponsored a bill to outlaw commercial trapping on public land called “Roxy’s Law” in honor of the 8-year-old heeler mix that died on a recreation area of the Bureau of Land Management.

In 2019, “Roxy’s Law” passed through two House committees, but did not receive a vote on the House floor. The bill won’t be introduced during the 2020 short session, but will likely be reintroduced in 2021, according to Chris Smith with WildEarth Guardians, a member of the coalition.

Trap incident map

Earlier this month, conservation and animal protection groups as part of the TrapFree New Mexico coalition released a map detailing trapping incidents around the state.

“The map shows trapping’s toll all across New Mexico, demonstrating that trapping is an ongoing problem for companion animals, endangered species, and law enforcement alike, according to information from the coalition,” a statement from the coalition noted.

The trapping incident map includes descriptions, locations, dates and photos of events involving family dogs, Mexican gray wolves, and illegally set traps based on data from New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, TrapFree New Mexico incident reports and media coverage.

The map shows:

• Trapping incidents have occurred in 22 counties in New Mexico
• More than 75 incidents involved domestic animals, some with no source cited
• In the 2015-2018 trapping seasons, 23 documented illegal trapping incidents
• Other incidents include outdoor recreationists finding dead, dying, or injured animals suffering in traps.

The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish is considering rule changes, according to information from the department. The proposal includes closing less than 1 percent of public lands to most traps on land, some technical requirements on how to set traps, mandatory trapper education and increased setbacks from trailheads, but not from trails or roads, according to TrapFree New Mexico and the Game and Fish department.

The proposal also calls for expanding year-round trapping seasons for raccoons and nutria, and increasing the time frame for a trapper to check on underwater traps.

The coalition characterized the suggested changes as “trivial,” contending they would do nothing to address the majority of the incidents documented on the map.

“This map highlights the reality of trapping: It is indiscriminate, cruel, and has a major, negative impact on people and animals throughout New Mexico,” said Mikaila Wireman, who created the map for WildEarth Guardians.

“The negligible changes proposed by the Department of Game and Fish do nothing to address the real problems that trapping imposes. Until traps and snares are banned on all public lands, devastating confrontations with traps will carry on and this map will only continue to grow.”

Blue jay caught in trap

Another view of traps

Ranchers in Lincoln County annually pay toward a predator control fund that is included in the county’s budget under external agency requests. In 2019-2020 the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s predator control program budget request was $34,660, which is supplemented by a per head of cattle tax paid by ranchers of 75 cents.

“Predator management is key to the success of any livestock operation and most agricultural operations,” said Caren Cowan, director of the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association. “It’s a good method, because it targets the offending predators. It is safe to be done, contrary to what others might say.

“Trappers have to be licensed and many of the incidents we hear about are from nonlicensed trappers. Trappers get a black eye from those kind of people and 99 percent of the trappers obey the laws. They do trapper education. It is  just a part of the hunting, fishing, ranching and agricultural culture of New Mexico.”

Banning traps on public land would remove a key element of predator control, Cowan said.

“Land in New Mexico is comingled and checker-boarded. Sometimes pastures may contain at least two statuses of land, federal and private or private and state. But most ranches are made up of all three classes of lands,” she said. “So when you stop it on one class of land, you are causing serious damage to the landowner, who can no longer protect his livestock.”

Chance Thedford, president of the New Mexico Trappers Association, contended what is described on the map is an inaccurate account of incidents throughout the state.

“It’s statistically proven that the chance of a hiker or their pet being injured is more likely to come by a snake bite rather than a legally placed trap,” Thedford said.

“Ranchers in New Mexico have never been able to trap wolves on private or public land,” he said. “A continued false attack on trapping has resulted in inaccurate/false reporting by local news outlets due to lack of knowledge and education on the subject.”

The New Mexico Trappers Association strongly advocates for and promotes wise use of trapping and trapping education, Thedford said, adding that the group’s motto is “Promoting Wise Use.”

Members were angered about the death of Roxy and outraged at the decision not to pursue charges against the individual identified as the illegal trapper, he said, adding that the incident left a black eye on the trapping community.

“We continue to see the blatant disregard for a long existing law that requires pets to be restrained on public land,” he said. Instead, those lawfully trapping have been attacked, he contended.

TrapFree officials disagree, stating that trapping conflicts with the state’s valuable outdoor recreation industry and that scientific studies show that trapping and lethally removing carnivore species, like coyotes often exacerbate conflicts such as those with livestock.

They referenced “Using Coyotes to Protect Livestock. Wait What?” from the Oregon Small Farm News.

“The true toll that trapping takes on native wildlife is difficult to know. Reporting requirements exist for some species, but not for often-trapped so-called ‘unprotected furbearers’ like coyotes and skunks,” according to the information supplied by TrapFree New Mexico. 

Read this article in the Ruidoso News »

The post Cruel or essential? Map details trapping incidents across New Mexico appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.

WildEarth’s Christopher Smith said a runner found the trap with the fox about 15 feet off of Old Santa Fe Trail between Toltec and Coyote Mountain roads, south of the El Gancho fitness club.

Smith said that under state rules foxes are “protected species,” meaning trapping them is regulated by the state Game and Fish Department. The next trapping season doesn’t start until Nov. 1.

He also said trappers are required to check their traps every 24 hours and the fox found on Wednesday appeared to have been died in the trap about a week ago.

WildEarth Guardians, a Santa Fe-based environmental group, has been pushing for new trapping restrictions and a ban on trapping on public lands.

Game and Fish spokeswoman Tristana Bickforce said the department had received a report of the trapping and had an agent on the scene investigating Wednesday afternoon.

Read the article in the Albuquerque Journal »

The post Fox died in trap that may have been illegal 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.

“I just think the tide has turned. There are too many people out there on those public lands, and it’s like we’re walking through a mine field,” said a New Mexico man whose dog died in a trap.

An illegally-set steel cable trap likely intended for bobcats caught David Clark’s dog Roxy around the neck while they were on a walk on public land near Santa Cruz Lake in New Mexico. Clark said he couldn’t figure out how to release Roxy and had to watch his best friend suffocate in his arms.

“I understand where the trappers and ranchers are coming from, but I just think the tide has turned,” Clark, a retired ecologist, said from his home in Espanola, New Mexico. “There are too many people out there on those public lands, and it’s like we’re walking through a mine field.”

Read the article on NBCNews.com »

The post Farmers and trappers say limiting animal trapping threatens a way of life appeared first on TrapFree New Mexico.