Media

News & Articles on the Threat to Cougars

APNM PRESS RELEASES

For Immediate Release: November 3, 2017 – Federal court ruling allows challenge to cougar trapping to proceed

For Immediate Release: January 12, 2017 – Federal judge rules challenge to cougar trapping may proceed

For Immediate Release: November 1, 2016 – Reckless and deadly cougar trapping practices begin, putting endangered species, mother cougars, and their cubs at increased risk

For Immediate Release: June 27, 2016 – Wildlife advocates file federal lawsuit to protect endangered species from cougar trapping

The recommendations of NMDGF and the State Land Office have provoked widespread outrage and criticism from the public and media:

APNM PRESS RELEASE: GAME COMMISSION ENDORSES INCREASED TRAPPING, KILLING OF COUGARS AND BEARS DESPITE OVERWHELMING PUBLIC OUTCRY – THURSDAY, AUGUST 27, 2015

MORE NEWS ON GAME COMMISION’S DECISION:

The NM Political Report: Commission votes for more bear hunting, expanding trapping of cougars August 28, 2015

KRQE: New Mexico panel revamps hunt limits on bears, cougars

Los Alamos Daily Post: Game Commission Votes 7-0 For Cougar Trapping

KOAT Albuquerque: NM game commission approves more bear, cougar kills

Albuquerque Journal: Expanded NM cougar, bear hunting OK’d

EDITORIAL – LAS CRUCES SUN NEWS – AUGUST 25, 2015
MORE TRAPS, SNARES IN NM NOT THE ANSWER

This has been a tough year to be a mountain lion in New Mexico.

First, Rep. Zachary Cook, R-Ruidoso, introduced legislation that would have allowed for the indiscriminate killing of cougars. It would have legalized the same kind of hunting contests we now have with coyotes — shoot as many as you can and then leave the carcasses heaped in a pile. The bill breezed through its first House committee before the public got wind of it, and the backlash forced Cook to retreat. Continue article »

APNM PRESS RELEASE – MONDAY, AUGUST 24, 2015
NEW MEXICO VOTERS STATEWIDE STRONGLY OPPOSE PROPOSALS TO INCREASE COUGAR TRAPPING

A new statewide survey reveals by more than a three-to-one margin, New Mexico voters oppose killing contests and unregulated cougar trapping on state trust lands even as agencies claim these activities could increase state revenues, with strong majorities in every demographic group and political affiliation. Continue article »

LETTER TO THE EDITOR – ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL – AUGUST 18, 2015
GAME COMMISSION RULED BY SPECIAL INTERESTS

New Mexico Game and Fish Department has some good people working for it, but it is so dominated by special interests that it can’t do the job the people of this state demand. State Game and Fish policies discourage biodiversity, which is the key to a healthy environment. Continue article »

NEWS – SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN – AUGUST 15, 2015
CRITICS: GAME COMMISSION PUTS PREDATORS IN ‘BULL’S-EYE’

The makeup of the commission is once again in the spotlight as it considers the department’s controversial recommendation to increase kill limits on bears and cougars, a move opponents say is shortsighted and lacking in updated science.

Republican state Rep. Jim Smith, a wildlife biologist and retired teacher from Sandia Park, is among those questioning the department’s recommendation. But to him, the debate about predators is less a political divide than an urban and rural one. “There are Democrats and Republicans on both sides of this issue,” Smith said. Continue article »

LETTER TO THE EDITOR – THE SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN – AUGUST 14, 2015
GRIEF INTO ACTION

As Americans grieve the killing of Cecil the lion, New Mexico wildlife advocates have a unique opportunity to turn that grief into action for the betterment of New Mexico’s big game. The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish wants to increase the number of bears hunters can kill, and expand cougar trapping on millions of acres. Groups opposing these increases — Sierra Club and Animal Protection New Mexico — are being ignored. Continue article »

RADIO – KVSF (SANTA FE) – AUGUST 13, 2015
INTERVIEW WITH SIERRA CLUB’S MARY KATHERINE RAY ON KVSF RADIO

LETTER TO THE EDITOR – THE SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN – AUGUST 13, 2015
UNFAIR GAME

The New Mexico State Game Commission’s public policies on trapping allows this brutal sport for the economic gain of a few. Land which our tax dollars serve should have no part of this cruel, medieval form of torture. Continue article »

EDITORIAL – ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL – AUGUST 9, 2015
TRAPPING HAS NO PLACE IN NM WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT

Get out your bone-crushing traps, because the state Department of Game and Fish wants to expand opportunities to use them to kill New Mexico wildlife. The department is proposing to make trapping cougars easier on private land and to expand the practice to about 9 million acres of state trust land – which, along with the wildlife, belongs to all New Mexicans. Continue article »

RADIO – KUPR (PLACITAS) – AUGUST 4, 2015
APNM’S PHIL CARTER INTERVIEW ON THE KUPR RADIO

EDITORIAL – ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL – JUNE 24, 2015
NM SHOULD GET RID OF, NOT EXPAND, CRUEL TRAPS

Why, in 2015, are the people entrusted with managing New Mexico’s lands and wildlife for posterity trying to expand the use of a barbaric trap invented in the 1800s? Leg-hold traps have been banned in more than 80 countries that see them for what they are – archaic, cruel and indiscriminate as to what they maim and kill. Yet the state Department of Game and Fish wants to expand their use here, allowing private landowners to trap cougars on their property without a permit – which is now required – from November through March. Continue article »

NEWS – ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL – JUNE 21, 2015
EASING OF COUGAR TRAP RULES ON STATE TRUST LANDS SOUGHT

As the State Game Commission weighs whether to ease the rules for trapping cougars on private property, Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn wants that expanded to millions of acres of state trust lands, as well. . . . The Sierra Club’s Mary Katherine Ray said the proposal appears to give grazing permittees the final authority on cougar trapping, which is inconsistent with other policies. . . . Ray also said Dunn’s proposal is at odds with other uses of state land and with wildlife conservation. Traps on state lands are “still going to be just as indiscriminate … and as cruel and injurious as they are anywhere,” she said. Continue article »

EDITORIAL – ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL – MAY 5, 2015
NM CAN’T GET CAUGHT UP IN PLAN TO EXPAND CRUEL TRAPS

Today marks the second of five public meetings on a proposal to allow trapping of mountain lions on public lands, and it continues what appears to be the New Mexico Game and Fish Department’s standard operating procedure of ignoring vetted science and reliable data in favor of unsubstantiated anecdotes and histrionics.

Because if New Mexico is indeed being overrun by cougars, why are hunters killing only around 225 each year when 750 kills are allowed? Moreover, why would a state that finally said goodbye to strapping razors on roosters for death matches decide the best way to address an alleged overpopulation of a species is a device that can lead to a slow, painful, terrified death for anything that comes in contact with it? Continue article »

DEEP THOUGHTS ON COUGAR TRAPPING

Thousands of New Mexico citizens oppose expansion of cougar trapping – including renowned humorist and writer Jack Handey, best known for his surrealist one-liner jokes in “Deep Thoughts” segments on Saturday Night Live in the ’90s. Here’s what he has to say: