Did you know that it is legal in New Mexico for trappers to place leg-hold traps and strangling snares on public land? This is land where anyone can be. There are no warnings posted and each trapper can place out and set an unlimited number of these hidden devices and can club to death an unlimited number of furbearing victims. Pelt prices are on the rise so trappers are setting more traps and if you use public lands your chance of an unpleasant encounter is on the rise too. Legal traps may be large enough to close on a human foot and certainly frequently close on our companion dogs’ feet. Game department officials are strangely unconcerned about this situation and believe that the relatively few trappers have a greater right to their activity than unsuspecting recreation users.
We are beginning a historic effort to see that leg-hold traps and snares are prohibited from public land in New Mexico. The Department of Game and Fish is accepting comments on trapping regulations and needs to hear from concerned hikers, campers, wildlife watchers, dog owners and responsible hunters. The Department needs to know that the public would rather have a chance to see a live bobcat or fox than to encounter a leg-hold trap or snare on public land. And also that current regulations allowing trappers to set unlimited numbers of traps and kill unlimited numbers of animals is poor wildlife management policy. Moreover, the toll on unintended wildlife including endangered species, which must be destroyed or which are released only to die later from trap sustained injury, is unacceptable.
Please send your comments along with your name and address urging the end of trapping on public land in New Mexico to notraps@gilanet.com and we will see to it that the director of the game department along with each of the seven game commissioners gets a copy. We need your letters by July 10. Please write today and urge people you know to do the same.
Points to include in your letter:
* Body crushing traps and snares should be prohibited on public lands in New Mexico as they are in Arizona.
* Most animals caught in body-gripping traps react to the pain and trauma by frantically struggling against the trap in an attempt to free themselves. These animals frequently sustain fractures, ripped tendons, and/or tooth and mouth damage from chewing and biting at the trap. Some animals even chew or twist off their trapped limb trying to escape. It would violate most state humane laws to treat a domestic dog or cat in the same manner.
* Neck snares, leghold traps, and Conibear kill-traps regularly catch non-target animals, posing a significant hazard to domestic animals as well as threatened and endangered species.
* Because of their inherently indiscriminate nature and regulations which allow unlimited take, body-gripping traps are not an ecologically sound, or humane, method for wildlife “management.”
* The vast majority of New Mexico residents and public land users do not trap. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, approximately 35% of New Mexico residents participate in non-consumptive wildlife activities (such as watching and photographing wildlife) and less than 1% (.03%) trap. While many trappers hunt, the vast majority of hunters do not trap. Trapping is not considered “fair chase” by the Boone and Crockett club, an organization founded by Theodore Roosevelt to promote wildlife conservation and ethical hunting.
* More than 80 countries have banned leghold traps, including all member-nations of the European Union.
* The American Veterinary Medical Association, the American Animal Hospital Association, and the National Animal Control Association have all deemed the leghold trap “inhumane.” The National Animal Control Association has also deemed the snare inhumane and recommends against its use.
Ah, Wilderness!: Death of a Bobcat by Mary Katherine Ray, Winston, NM
”I found a dead bobcat a few weeks ago. The furry corpse couldn’t have been dead long. … Even in death, I think she was one of the most beautiful animals I have ever seen.”