SWEC files petition to end trapping in wolf recovery area
The Southwest Environmental Center along with its partners has filed a petition with the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to bring an end to the currently legal, but highly detrimental practices of trapping within the Mexican wolf recovery area.
Many people travel specifically to the Mexican wolf recovery area in New Mexico and Arizona to recreate and have a chance to see (or hear) signs of wolves. Unfortunately, they are much more likely to come across one of the innumerable traps set on public lands, than they are to find any sign of wolves.
In New Mexico, there is effectively no season for trapping or limit to the number of traps that can be placed on public lands. Moreover, New Mexican trappers are still allowed to use leg-hold traps which have been banned in 80 countries and several states as inhumane. These traps capture anything that springs them and have no place where wolves can be caught. (In Arizona trapping in the recovery area is limited to scientific projects and relocation efforts, and use of leg-hold traps is banned.)
As a result at least fourteen Mexican wolves have been caught in legally placed traps. Several of these trapped wolves were injured and two have lost a leg because of those injuries.
With so many threats to Mexican wolves’ recovery we need to act now to make sure that these trappings stop. The Center is working with its partners to bring an immediate end to trapping in the recovery area for wolves, and you can help.
Join us in our call to halt the rampant spread of traps in the Mexican wolf recovery area.
Call the Regional Director of Fish and Wildlife Service and the Gila National Forest Supervisor to end trapping on public lands within the wolf recovery area. Tell them:
- With so many threats to wolves we cannot allow easily preventable injuries from trapping to continue.
- Traps on the public lands that make up the wolf recovery area represent a clear threat to wolves (at least 14 have been captured) as well as to all who enjoy recreating in these areas.
- They have an obligation to act because of the Endangered Species Act.
Here are the officials and their contact info:
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Regional Director Dr. Benjamin Tuggle: RDTuggle@fws.gov or 505-248-6282.
- Gila National Forest Supervisor Dick Markley: dmarkley@fs.fed.us or (505) 388-8301.
With your help we can make this change happen quickly and this threat can be removed from the recovery area.
Read the complete report from Fish and Wildlife on the threats to wolf recovery in the southwest, and how they came to the conclusion that: “The Blue Range population is at risk of failure...”
UPDATE:
Despite continued silence from both the Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service with regard to the petitions to ban trapping, there is still good news. Read Governor Richarson's executive order to ban trapping in the recovery area and all its implications here.