Take Action Today! New Mexico members should contact their State Senator and ask them to vote NO on Senate Bill 286. SB 286 will negatively impact New Mexico’s wildlife and the public. Currently this bill has been assigned to the Senate Conservation Committee. New Mexico sportsmen and women are encouraged to us the Sportsmen’s Alliance’s Legislative Action Center to contact their State Senator.
New Mexico Sen. Pete Campos (D-District 8) has sponsored legislation that will ban trapping on all public lands. The bill stops everyone, whether it’s an individual or a public entity, from trapping on all public property. Senate Bill 286 severely hampers the state’s ability to manage many furbearing and predatory species to protect the public and other wildlife.
More than 40 percent of New Mexico’s land is public property, meaning that nearly half of all lands, which are owned by the public, would be off limits to trapping. This makes effective wildlife control nearly impossible. Trapping protects livestock from predators. It controls disease causing wildlife populations. It protects other wildlife from over population.
Senate Bill 286 is bad for public safety and welfare. It’s bad for New Mexico’s ranchers. And it’s bad for wildlife. Trapping is tightly regulated by the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. Both federal and state wildlife experts agree that trapping is an essential aspect of wildlife management.
On Election Day this past November, voters in Montana soundly rejected a ballot initiative that would have enacted a similar ban on public land trapping in the Big Sky state. The initiative, supported by the anti-hunting and -trapping lobby failed with 63 percent of voters rejecting the same claims made in New Mexico by animal-rights groups.
About the Sportsmen’s Alliance: The Sportsmen’s Alliance protects and defends America’s wildlife conservation programs and the pursuits – hunting, fishing and trapping – that generate the money to pay for them. Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation is responsible for public education, legal defense and research. Its mission is accomplished through several distinct programs coordinated to provide the most complete defense capability possible. Stay connected to Sportsmen’s Alliance: Online, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.