Those who wish to submit a formal comment on the state Game Commission's recent decision to expand leg-hold trapping on public lands can do so beginning today.---
A body called the People's Forum Panel on Public Lands Trapping requests members of the public submit their comments here. Those will be used to create a report for "the public and decision makers," according to WildEarth Guardians, a local environmental nonprofit that has taken the lead on the issue.
The comment protocol was set up after a Sept. 14 forum put on by People's Forum Panel on Public Lands Trapping, which is a panel of politicians with an environmentalist bent. At the forum, over 30 members of the public spoke against the Game Commission's July 21st decision to expand the trapping into territory where endangered Mexican gray wolves are released under a federal program. That area became off-limits to trapping in 2010 during the Richardson administration in an effort to protect the wolves. The wolves' population is still only at half its target of 100 individuals; some of the wolves believed to have been injured by traps are said to live in the Gila area, getting by on their three remaining legs.
Endangered wolves aren't the only animals affected; several three-legged dogs in the care of Heart and Soul Animal Sanctuary made a pitiful procession to the podium Sept. 14 to demonstrate the dangers the traps hold to domestic animals as well. Traps are allowed to be placed as close as 25 feet from hiking trails on public lands.
No one spoke in favor of trapping at the Sept. 14 forum, where a video was shown of a bobcat being strangled to death by a trapper who could be heard laughing as the animal struggled against the catch-pole, outfitted with a noose. The Game Commission also received a disproportionate amount of anti-trapping comments before it made the July decision. In the comment section on SFR's story, there's a lively debate between people on both sides of the issue.
