SANTA FE, N. M. – There's still a month left in the animal-trapping season and, with the weather warming, hikers on public lands need to exercise caution – especially if they bring their dogs along.

Trapping for fox, badger, weasel, ringtail and bobcat is legal on public lands from Nov. 1 to March 15.

Mary Katherine Ray, wildlife chair for the Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter, said traps are only required to be 25 yards away from roads or trails, and a dog can easily find itself caught in a leg-hold trap or snare.

"Having a dog trapped is a frightening and traumatic experience," said Ray. "People universally say they don't know what's happened to their dog. People say they think a snake, they think some animal attacked it – that the dog is, basically, the word they use is 'screaming' – because when the trap slams shut, it's the equivalent to having your hand caught in a car door."

Diagrams showing how to free a pet accidentally caught in a trap can be found at trapfreenm.org. But some traps are very difficult to open, and Ray said a pet owner may need to transport their pet to a veterinary clinic to have it removed.

She said the Sierra Club supports laws to ban trapping. But until those laws are changed, pet owners should know how to respond.

"No matter how friendly and lovable that dog is, they lose their mind in response to the pain of the trap," she said. "So, people are often bitten trying to rescue their own dog, and sometimes bitten severely. We recommend that one thing you do to try to avoid that is cover your dog with a jacket."

Arizona and Colorado banned lethal trapping more than 20 years ago, but New Mexico lawmakers have so far rejected similar legislation. Trappers say the practice is key to controlling carnivores that prey on livestock.

The Sierra Club and other conservation groups also oppose coyote-killing contests popular in New Mexico, but have so far been unable to get legislation passed to ban the practice. Ray said there is no evidence the contests benefit management of the coyote population.

"They're a little wild dog, and they're beautiful, and how poor would we be if you couldn't go out at night and hear coyotes howling to each other?" she asked. "That is a rich sound in nature, and they actually do a really important service in keeping rodents and rabbits in check."

The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish estimates the number of fur bearers trapped and killed in New Mexico each year is more than 5,000. But that figure does not include coyotes, which are killed in equal numbers.



get more stories like this via email

Two state agencies have teamed up to make safer wildlife migration a priority in Utah.

The Utah Wildlife Migration Initiative relies heavily on GPS tracking data received from mammals, birds and fish, which gives coordinators a good picture of where animals are spending time, the routes they take, and areas where safe migration routes are needed.

It is a joint project of the state's Division of Wildlife Resources and Department of Transportation.

Blair Stringham, wildlife migration initiative coordinator for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, said they have now completed more than a hundred projects, and for them to be effective, they have to align with animals' tendencies and behaviors.

"Some of the really cool things we have done though, we've been able to install overpasses, which are essentially bridges going over roadways so animals can move back and forth," Stringham explained. "They've been really successful, with a lot of different animal species."

Stringham pointed out they have also been able to install underpasses, as well as fencing projects to keep wildlife off roads. They have even found ways to help fish move from one stretch of river to other tributaries if they were cut off by roadways.

Stringham emphasized helping animals migrate can save their lives in the process. Even so, about 4,900 deer were killed last year due to vehicle collisions. Stringham acknowledged many people do not realize the material damage which results from these accidents can add up quickly. He added keeping wildlife off the roads keeps people safer, too, and the evidence shows the projects are helping.

"We tend to see a huge improvement in the number of collisions with wildlife when we do these kinds of projects," Stringham observed. "We've seen anywhere from 75% to 90% success on most of these."

The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources recently released an app, called the "Utah Roadkill Reporter." It allows anyone to report animals killed on the road as they come across them. Stringham stated it helps contractors locate and remove carcasses, and the data is also used to plan future projects to help prevent wildlife-vehicle collisions.

Migrating wildlife can struggle with the extensive fencing throughout the West, and a new study is filling in the gaps on where these fences are in southwest Montana.

Simon Buzzard, senior coordinator of wildlife connectivity for the National Wildlife Federation and the report's lead author, said the variety of wildlife in the region is extensive, from large mammals such as pronghorn, mule deer and grizzly bears, to ground-nesting birds such as sage grouse.

"This host of species that migrate between public lands and private lands, across elevation changes and across state borders; we don't know how fences are impacting those movements," Buzzard pointed out. "That's why it's important to create this data."

Fences are designed to contain livestock movement on working lands but can entangle other species moving through the region. Buzzard noted more wildlife friendly fencing designs can help migrating animals better navigate fenced areas. He added hard-to-navigate fencing is an issue not just on private lands but public lands as well.

The preference is for fencing to be no higher than 40 inches, and for bottom wires to be at least 18 inches off the ground.

"To allow for sensitive species like pronghorn to go under but also for juveniles of other species," Buzzard emphasized. "Juvenile elk, juvenile moose, black bears. A lot of these large-bodied mammals still prefer to go under fences than to go over them."

Buzzard's study found only 3% of sampled fences in Beaverhead and Madison counties had bottom wires 18 inches or higher and only 6% had top wires of 40 inches or lower.

He noted financing is available for landowners to convert existing fencing into wildlife-friendly fencing, especially if a lot of big game species move across their lands.

A controversial proposal to let individual hunters kill two bears per season instead of one is on the agenda at a meeting of the California Fish and Game Commission's Wildlife Resources Committee tomorrow and Thursday. The state allows hunters as a group to kill 1,700 hundred black bears per year, and 1,300 were taken in 2022.

Judie Mancuso, founder and president of the group Social Compassion in Legislation, opposes hunting.

"From an ethical and moral standpoint, we absolutely shouldn't be hunting bears," Mancuso said. "This is purely a trophy sport. It's not about being overrun with bears."

Both conservationists and the pro-hunting advocacy group Howl for Wildlife are rallying members to weigh in at the meeting. Hunters have submitted a petition to authorize a second bear tag for the Fall hunt and to allow tags to be resold if they are not used within the season, which starts in August with two weeks of archery hunting and then transitions to rifle hunting through late December.

The Wildlife committee will also take comment on the development of a new bear management plan, which was last updated in 1998. Mancuso wants the hunt to be stopped until the new bear-management plan is approved.

"We don't want to be killing any bears because this management plan hasn't been completed," she said. "And the department has no idea how many bears we even have in the state. "

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife's 2020 bear take report estimated the population to be about 15,000 animals in the official hunting grounds. And bear tags are big business. In 2020, California sold 30,000 tags and raised more than $1.5-million for wildlife management and conservation.