Wildlife

By Teresa Seamster

Trappers kill thousands of our state’s wild animals each year for recreation and profit. According to last season’s Furbearer Harvest report from the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, over a thousand of the following species were killed in traps set throughout New Mexico: gray foxes (1,694), bobcats (1,715), and coyotes (4,609). But these numbers are a fraction of the actual total, which is unknown.

By Mary Katherine Ray

Because of the injustice of the trapping decision, on Sept. 14, Sierra Club, WildEarth Guardians, Born Free USA and Animal Protection of NM held our own hearing, “The People’s Forum on Public Lands Trapping,” attended by over 130 participants. Though they were invited, no trappers, Game commissioners or representatives from N.M. Game and Fish attended.

By Mary Katherine Ray,Chapter Wildlife Chair

In July, the New Mexico State Game Commission made a final decision on trapping rules. After waiting two years for the rules to be opened to review and not having been examined since 2006, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish held the Commission meeting at which the decision was made in Clayton, a tiny town as far from any major population center in New Mexico as the map would allow, limiting public participation. This foretold the action to come.

By Wren Abbott - originally published in the Santa Fe Reporter on 9/21/2011.

“There’s no gray in this issue,” Cerrillos activist Cindy Roper told attendees at a panel on animal trapping held in Albuquerque last week. “It’s very black and white.”

Ban Was Lifted In Wolf Recovery Area

By Astrid Galvan, ABQ Journal Staff Writer
Originally published in the ABQ Journal on September 15

The founder of a Santa Fe animal sanctuary had three dogs each missing one leg. A woman from San Cristobal told of her dogs — and her fingers — being caught in animal traps.
They were two of about 75 people from all over the state who traveled to Albuquerque on Wednesday to discuss trapping on public lands.

By Susan Montoya Bryan/Associated Press, printed in Las Cruces Sun News on September 14

ALBUQUERQUE — The debate over whether New Mexico should prohibit the trapping of bobcats, raccoons and other furbearing animals on public lands is far from over.

Conservation groups scheduled a forum Wednesday evening to talk about trapping and a recent decision by the state Game Commission to lift a trapping ban in southwestern New Mexico, where the federal government has reintroduced the endangered Mexican gray wolf.

July 17 - The Game Commission will decide on July 21 the fates of thousands of Bobcats, foxes and the other “bearers” of fur. In response to our public protest, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish has posted an alternative for Game Commissioners to consider that would prohibit leghold traps, snares and lethal body crushing traps on public land. Read this alternative proposal.

Mary Katherine Ray, Chapter Wildlife Chair
In response to a trapping rule review, thousands of petition signatures, e-mails, and letters have been sent to New Mexico Game and Fish asking that leg-hold traps, snares and other body-crushing traps be prohibited from New Mexico’s public lands.

By Mary Katherine Ray, Chapter Wildlife Chair

An item on the New Mexico Game Commission’s June 9 meeting agenda said the Department of Game and Fish was seeking “guidance” on the wolf-reintroduction program.

Conservation Groups Formally Call Upon New Mexican Officials to Ban Traps Cruel, Indiscriminate, and Harmful to Wildlife and Recreationists

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Santa Fe, NM. Yesterday, three conservation and animal welfare organizations formally requested that New Mexico wildlife officials ban traps and snares on all public lands. The Sierra Club, WildEarth Guardians, and Animal Protection of New Mexico made the request to the New Mexico Game Commission, which is charged with managing wildlife in the state and regulates trapping.