The New Mexico Game Commission is reviewing the state's wildlife trapping rules, which currently allow licensed trappers to use cruel leg-hold and body-gripping traps for raccoons, foxes, beavers, and other animals in New Mexico.
Leg-hold traps, even rubber-coated ones, cause immense pain and injury. Terrified animals are further injured in their frantic struggle to get free. Bones snap, flesh tears, and many victims chew or twist off their own limbs in order to escape. Body-gripping traps are also hideously cruel, designed to clamp down on animals' necks so that they slowly suffocate or to hold them underwater so that they drown.
These traps are also indiscriminate. Any animal, including beloved companion animals, can fall prey.
Please politely urge the New Mexico Game Commission to ban cruel traps. Send polite comments to:
New Mexico Department of Game & Fishc/o Wildlife Management Divisionnmdept.ofgameandfish@state.nm.ushttp://wildlife.state.nm.us/documents/Trapping_Rule.html (Web form)