-Gila Sustainable Community News, Calendar and Forum-

Governor Bill Richardson Orders Temporary Trapping Ban to Protect the Mexican Gray Wolf

Ban Limited to Portion of Blue Range Recovery Area wolves call home.

SANTA FE – Governor Bill Richardson today ordered a six-month ban on trapping in the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area in an effort to protect the Mexican Gray Wolves that have been reintroduced to the New Mexico portion of the Gila and Apache National Forests.

Governor Richardson directed the New Mexico Department of Game & Fish to initiate the temporary trapping ban, while it conducts a study on trapping to determine the level of risk to the Mexican Gray Wolf associated with the various traps and snares.

“The indiscriminate traps and snares in the Recovery Area are harming efforts to reintroduce the Mexican Gray Wolf to its native habitat,” Governor Richardson. “I am ordering this temporary ban to protect the wolves and increase the likelihood for the wolves to survive and flourish.”

I commended Governor Richardson for issuing this six-month moratorium on commercial and recreational trapping in the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area.

Inexplicably, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish has allowed commercial and recreational trappers to use barbaric steel-jaw leghold and snare traps on public lands in our state that are inhabited by the Mexican wolves, river otters, black-footed ferrets and other threatened and endangered species. How can a government agency on the one hand be responsible for protecting and reintroducing endangered wildlife and on the other allow commercial and recreational trapping to go on in areas where those same animals are desperately trying to survive?

Commercial and recreational trappers trap animals for the sole purpose of stripping the fur from their backs to sell to the highest fashion industry bidder. Providing animal hides so that someone can buy a coat with a fur collar and cuffs is an entirely unnecessary enterprise for a civilized society. And surely, this barbaric practice should not be allowed in areas home to threatened and endangered animals.

In fact, the use of these cruel and indiscriminate traps should be banned on ALL lands in New Mexico accessible by the public and their companion animals.

Grant county has historically led the state each year in the total number of animals trapped for their fur. This winter, however, all of the wonderful wildlife that inhabit the Gila National Forest will finally have a reprieve, albeit a brief one, from the trappers cruel implements.

This is really important: Please call and/or email Governor Richardson and tell him that you appreciate his trap suspension order.

Contact Gov. Richardson using his web contact form at: http://www.governor.state.nm.us/email.p ... pe=opinion

Or, better yet, call the his office at: 505-476-2200.

Thank you.

I agree, this executive order is wonderful! Now if we could just make it permanent on all public land in NM. Its really important to protect wolves, but protecting people and our dogs and other wildlife from these awful devices is important too!