Six years ago, Mary Katherine Ray was hiking in the Cibola National Forest when her dogs became excited. Enticed by a lure intended to attract wildlife, they ran toward a double long-spring trap, pulling Ray along with them. Purely by accident, she kicked the contraption and it snapped shut before one of her dogs could step into it.
“It was really easy to see what you have to do to make it open, but I’m not strong enough,” Ray says. She experimented with the trap, wanting to know if she could open it in case she ever encountered another. She stood upon it, pressing down and trying to open it—then noticed a chain attached to a stake that was driven into the ground.
Realizing that the trap was stuck in the frozen ground—it was early December—the seriousness of what might have happened hit her.
“We were an hour-and-a-half away from the car, and a hour’s drive away from help,” she says. “What would I have done? Left my dog in the trap?”
Until then, Ray had never realized trapping still occurred. But the incident chilled her and, as a result, she started learning about wildlife trapping in
New Mexico
and the international fur industry it supports.
Bobcats are the most lucrative species trapped in
New Mexico
—their pelts sell for approximately $500 each, though some in recent years have gone for $1,000. Meanwhile, fox skins sell for between $10 and $40. They aren’t usually tanned or processed in
New Mexico
, she learned, nor are they sold here. Rather, the final products usually end up in Eastern Europe or
Asia
.
New Mexico
not only has the longest trapping season of any state in the
West
, trappers here also kill more bobcats than within any other state.
“It’s like a macabre gold rush,” Ray says, noting that trapping differs from hunting in significant ways. Big game hunters can’t earn a profit off the meat or skins they procure, but trappers can. Trappers don’t have limits or bag counts; there are no rules on how many traps someone can set. And there is also no way to control, or even know, which animals might be caught.
“I’ve heard the traps called the ‘drift nets of the forest,’” Ray, a volunteer wildlife chairwoman for the Rio Grande chapter of the Sierra Club, says. “And I just think, ‘How can we still do that today?’”
It is legal to set unmarked traps on public lands throughout
New Mexico
, including on state trust lands, national forests and Bureau of Land Management lands. Now, the nonprofit WildEarth Guardians, which is one of three groups that has repeatedly requested that the state revisit the law—known as the furbearer regulation—is poised to issue new challenges against the regulation.
The furbearer regulation applies to a number of species: raccoon, badger, weasel, all species of fox, ringtail, bobcat, beaver, muskrat and nutria. Each of those fall into a season during which trappers can kill the animals, while two other furbearers, coyote and skunk, can be killed anytime throughout the year. Annually, the
New Mexico
Department of Game and Fish issues permits to approximately 2,000 commercial trappers.
“Because there are only 2,000 trappers, chances are good you will not run into a trap,” Ray, who leads Sierra Club outings and still encourages people to spend time in the backcountry, tells
SFR
. “But once you have an experience like that, it makes you look at the places you go in a totally new light—the woods are supposed to be a place we can go to feel safe.”
When most New Mexicans think about trapping, they probably recall history lessons and Mountain Man historical re-enactments. After all, fur-trapping parties frequently moved through the territory at the turn of the 19th century, following the Gila River or moving through the area in search of beavers in the
Colorado
River or
Utah
’s
Green River
. When
Mexico
declared independence from
Spain
in 1821,
New Mexico
was opened to fur trappers and traders who previously had not been welcome. Taos, in fact, became a major trade center and, from his home there, Kit Carson set off frequently on fur-trapping expeditions throughout the West.
Today, many New Mexicans aren’t even aware trapping still occurs: In 2005, a Research & Polling, Inc. survey commissioned by the Sierra Club showed that only 41 percent of voters statewide knew trapping was legal on public lands in the state.
Though legal, even the best-laid plans by government trappers have led to problems—or, it’s fair to say in at least one instance, a fiasco. During the summer of 2008, after a mountain lion killed a Pinos Altos resident and fed on the body, employees with the Department of Game and Fish and the US Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services laid snares to catch two felines in the area.
According to a Department of Game and Fish press release, employees set snares on public lands around Pinos Altos, placing signs on area roads and trails, and in public places. Snares caught the lions, but at least three other animals were trapped as well. Within one snare, a horse was caught; the horse threw its rider and both were injured. A second snare nabbed a javelina, which attracted a bear. While feeding on the javelina, the bear became entangled in yet another snare. Seriously injured, the bear was euthanized.
To critics, trapping is objectionable for numerous reasons. Some people learn about trapping after a pet is caught in a trap; others consider it an ethical issue or a matter of cruelty. Animals often aren’t killed instantly, meaning they experience fear, panic and, sometimes, dehydration. And, even though trappers are required to check traps within 24 hours, captured animals are vulnerable to other predators.
“In
New Mexico
, we’re still operating under a paradigm which is reflective of an Old West, 18th century mentality, which is: Let’s kill as many animals as possible,” WildEarth Guardians Executive Director John Horning says.
Horning himself raises questions over
New Mexico
’s lack of bag limits, long trapping
season and the Game Commission’s unwillingness to open the regulation to public review.
During the 2007-2008 bobcat trapping season, which ran from November through mid-March, 4,240 of the animals were killed. That’s more than twice the number killed in
Colorado
; in
Arizona
, only 1,000 were killed.
In 1996,
Colorado
voters approved a ban on leg-hold and instant-kill traps, snares and poison. (Government officials can still trap nuisance animals, and a 30-
day
state-regulated season on private lands remains.) In
Arizona
, citizens also voted to ban the use of body-crushing traps and snares on public lands.
During
New Mexico
’s 2008-2009 season, the Department of Game and Fish reported that 3,218 bobcats were killed. Although that lower number might make advocates happy, it represents uncertainty: Without population data, no one knows if the lower harvest number means there are simply fewer animals left to kill.
Not only that, but the numbers are incomplete: Although 2,123 licenses were sold, only 1,238—or 58 percent—responded to the department’s mandatory harvest survey.
For Horning, however, the final straw came when he learned how many rare wolves in southern
New Mexico
had lost legs to traps set in the Gila National Forest.
For more than a decade, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has struggled to re-build the Mexican gray wolf population in southern
New Mexico
and
Arizona
, which, by the mid-20th century, had been nearly hunted and trapped out of existence. With seven known wolves surviving in the wild, in 1976, the federal government listed wolves for protection under the Endangered Species Act. Wolves were captured and bred and, in 1998, the Fish and Wildlife Service re-introduced the first of the animals to the wild. The program has seen its share of politically induced woes—including a 2003 operating procedure that requires biologists to remove from the wild or kill wolves known or suspected to have preyed on livestock—and the wolf population has yet to achieve the 100-member goal set by the Fish and Wildlife Service in its 1982 recovery plan.
According to Horning, over the lifespan of the Mexican Wolf Recovery Program, 14 wolves have been caught in traps—there are currently 42 known wolves in the Southwest—and some have had their legs amputated.
“Last year, there was a revelation that there is a pack, the Middle Fork Pack, and the alpha male and alpha female each have only three legs,” Horning says. “And it’s because they were caught in traps.”
The Middle Fork Pack, which occupies territory in the Gila National Forest in southwestern
New Mexico
, has three collared members.
Leaning toward the map above his desk, Horning taps the southwestern corner of
New Mexico
, where a dark green patch of ink represents the historical home of wilderness, and embodies the legacy of hunter and conservationist Aldo Leopold.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Leopold helped establish a program to exterminate predators from
New Mexico
. The goal was to improve hunting conditions, but the extirpation of predators—including wolves, mountain lions and jaguars—led deer populations to burgeon out of control. By the late 1920s, there was mass starvation among deer in the Gila. After watching the consequences of his actions play out on the ground, Leopold’s thinking about the role of predators in maintaining an ecological balance evolved into a land ethic people still emulate today.
Not only that, but Leopold also urged the US Forest Service to designate 750,000 acres of the Gila National Forest as wilderness—that was in 1924, 40 years before Congress passed the Wilderness Act. Today, the Gila encompasses three wilderness areas, and its most remote areas are home to the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area, the boundaries of which re-introduced wolves cannot stray from without capture—but where traps and snares may be laid.
“Instead of leading the way—and perhaps even invoking Aldo Leopold and coming up with an ethically grounded paradigm that recognizes the central role of carnivores in influencing ecosystems—this is driven by the commercial interests of trappers,” Horning says. “To me, things like the longest season, the most bobcats killed: Those are just symptoms of how out of touch we’ve become in this state and, once again, we’re the worst of the worst.”
In August 2009, WildEarth Guardians, the Sierra Club and Animal Protection of
New Mexico
submitted six requests to the state Game Commission. These included: opening the furbearer regulation to public review; studying populations and creating management plans for bobcats and gray foxes; halting trapping season for kit foxes and swift foxes; requiring trappers to report their kills or face a loss of privileges; ensuring traps and snares are not placed in areas where non-target species, such as wolves, can be injured or killed; and mandating that traps be placed 50 yards from public trails and roads.
Horning says that the requests, as well as meetings with Department of Game and Fish officials, have been met with silence. Now, the nonprofit is drawing up a petition to the US Forest Service and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, asking the two agencies to ban trapping and snaring within the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area.
Federal land management agencies generally defer to states to manage wildlife populations on federal lands, but agencies can override state authority if the action is in the public’s interest. In the case of the wolves, the Fish and Wildlife Service could amend its reintroduction rule, Horning says, or the Forest Service could amend its forest plan for the Gila.
“It just pisses me off, generally, that trapping occurs on public lands with no restrictions—but it really irks me that, even when you have a federally endangered species, the state doesn’t see that it makes sense to restrict trapping from some areas,” Horning tells
SFR
. “That’s where reason falls away.”
But to the Department of Game and Fish, trapping is reasonable—it’s one of the tools used so the department can carry out its mandate, according to Tod Stevenson, the department’s director. That mandate, he says, is to offer recreational and harvest opportunities, but also to manage and sustain wildlife populations for future generations. The department sells trapping licenses but also traps animals for other reasons; when biologists need to put radio collars on wolves, for instance, they must use traps to catch the canines.
Furthermore, he points out, there are at least 40,000 elk hunters in
New Mexico
each year, while the department sells perhaps 5,000 furbearer licenses each year. Some of those people are commercial trappers—though he doubts a trapper can make a living off of selling furs only from
New Mexico
—but many are people who, for example, cull coyotes and buy a furbearer license just in case they have the opportunity to harvest a fox.
Stevenson acknowledges trapping is controversial—but so are many other wildlife issues.
“When you want to put this in somewhat of a perspective, I will tell you that wolves—bringing back that large a predator—there are some who want us to do this, but there are lots and lots of people out there who are adamantly opposed to the restoration of wolves,” he says.
Stevenson also acknowledges that trapping is one issue that may have some impact on the wolf restoration program, but says it is certainly not the biggest—or even one of the biggest—impediments to the restoration of wolves.
Additionally, the Department of Game and Fish and the Game Commission have crafted rules over time to ensure that the best possible management practices are incorporated. Trap sizes are limited, and traps must be placed away from trails, roads and campsites.
“We’ve done a lot of work on those rules to put a trap out there on the ground that is effective, but at the same time is the most humane, so that you can go and turn one of these animals loose,” Stevenson says, adding that frequent trap inspections are required.
“The rules assure that we know who is out there on the ground, and that folks are inspecting those traps a minimum of every 24 hours to assure that those animals are not caught there and then left, and also if we’ve got a non-target species, they can be released.”
Trapping doesn’t actually occur everywhere in the state: “There are lots and lots of places you can’t effectively go trapping because it’s just not feasible,” he points out.
Trapping activity also varies from season to season, depending on the market value of the hides, he says, “If the market isn’t there, then the amount of gasoline and time doesn’t make it worthwhile for folks to go out there and do that,” he says. “And it’s not across 100 percent of
New Mexico
.”
The furbearer rule will be opened for review later in the year, according to Stevenson. “I urge folks as much as I can, whether they be our trappers or anybody else out there on the ground, to be as reasonable as we can,” he tells
SFR
. “To get engaged in the rule-making process and to listen to the other person’s perspective and to then let us come up with the best management we can.”
It’s the Game Commission that will be charged with overseeing those hearings, although when Vice Chairman Sandy Buffett raised a motion to reopen the furbearer regulation to review at the commission’s April meeting, she failed to get a second.
“I got over 200 emails from advocates asking us to open the rule, and I got, well, I can count on one hand the emails and phone calls to not open the rule,” Buffett, who also is the executive director of the nonprofit Conservation Voters
New Mexico
, says. “I am the conservation person on the commission, so it doesn’t mean they didn’t go to other members, but I’ve certainly heard much more from citizens who want us to revisit the rule.”
(It’s not uncommon to revisit wildlife rules: Since Buffett joined the commission in 2007, big-game rules have been reviewed twice. Big game refers to deer, elk, bighorn sheep, Barbary sheep,
turkey
, bear, cougar, ibex, oryx and javelina. The commission reviews those rules every two years, adjusting details such as limits, season dates and also addresses other issues that are raised by hunters.)
Recognizing that the Department of Game and Fish is overburdened with responsibilities right now, Buffett says her motion was meant as a compromise: It would not have changed the policy but, rather, kick-started the lengthy process by which commissioners and the Department of Game and Fish glean public comments and stakeholder input.
“I thought we were overdue for seeking public comment on how we can ensure that we know what the local populations are, what stable management practices are and to also look at other states for examples of best practices,” Buffett says.
Although Buffett did not get support for her motion, now the commission will look at the regulations at the end of the year.
“Although some people didn’t see it this way, I think it’s going to be to the benefit of the furbearer rules to wait until this fall to look at all this information”—including the harvest report data the department is currently assembling, commissioner “Dutch” Salmon says. “We certainly don’t want to overharvest any particular species but, on the other hand, I personally don’t want to put any trappers out of business or cut them off from their chosen pursuit just because it’s controversial.”
Speaking from his home in Silver City—just back from a canoeing trip and with dogs barking in the background—Salmon recognizes the delicacy of the issue. Wolves? “That’s another sticky wicket,” he says. But improved trapping techniques could be employed. As for other inadvertent trappings, he points out that trappers are required to carry a noose on the end of a stick—a catch-pole that can immobilize the animal, allowing someone to release it. If trappers find an injured animal—or a protected animal, such as a mountain lion or bear—they are supposed to contact a game warden, who will release and treat (or euthanize) the animal.
For his part, Salmon’s own hunting dogs have been repeatedly caught in traps.
“Fortunately, we’ve never had a serious injury because I know how to open the trap and get them out,” he says, acknowledging how unnerving the situation might be for someone unfamiliar with traps. “Unfortunately, a lot of urban people don’t know how to do it—the dog panics, the owner panics—but it pays to know it’s not difficult to release a pet from a trap.”
Salmon acknowledges he falls into the middle ground of the issue—though he’s never trapped, he does hunt furbearing species. “Like I say, I’ve had my dogs caught in traps, but I’m not per se anti-trapping,” he says. “I think there’s room for well-managed trapping—we just may need to tweak the regulations from time to time.”
The commission’s chairman, Jim McClintic, points out that those rules have been tweaked—and improved—in recent years: Trappers re-applying for a license must now submit “harvest data.” That is, they must report details about animals captured and killed. “It’s the same thing we’ve had for several years for big-game hunting,” he tells
SFR
. “That information helps us a lot.”
But in the end, McClintic says, “It’s basically a hunter-gatherer-type proposition. Trapping has been a way of the West ever since anyone has been over here, and I just believe it’s our way to control certain species—it’s harvesting.”
SFR
