Editorial (posted 4-5-06)
It has been a daily ritual since I moved to the Jemez-a sunrise hike with the dogs, up the arroyo across from Canyon del Rio. The dogs had barely hit the trail last Friday when I heard barking and what I can only describe as an almost- human scream. I rushed up to see what the dogs had cornered. And there he was: a beautiful, male gray fox, his mangled leg dangling from a rusty trap that looked like something from the Spanish Inquisition.
I pulled the dogs off and hurried home, shaken by the cruelty of what I'd seen. Who knows how long the fox had been gnawing on his leg to escape the trap. He had to be put out of his misery. A call to Animal Amigos led to a kind neighbor with a gun.
Heading back to the torture scene, we found the fox's small mate in another trap, her forepaw hanging off by mere sinews. The foxes' lives were ended by humane bullets. They had suffered inhuman cruelty because their pelts are worth about sixty bucks.
I am not such a bleeding-heart-newcomer that I am put off by hunting. Ethical tracking and a clean shot that puts meat on a family table is nothing like the cruelty endured by this fox and his mate. This trapper was incredibly lazy-he set his instruments of torture a mere fifteen paces off State Road 4, not on U.S. Forest land, but within the Village of Jemez Springs.
Which is illegal, it turns out. State Fish and Game officer Michael Martinez later checked the scene, and said, not only were the traps illegal because they were cruelly outdated with no required mark to identify the trapper, but also because they were set within a quarter mile of residences.
One of those residences is the Canyon del Rio Bed & Breakfast, where Dagna Samuels Althiede has been watching the fox pair for years. "Foxes mate for life, you know," she said. "This is so sad it's hard to talk about." Her mother, Linda Vi Vona, has also watched the foxes. "It's like one of my totem animals has died," she said.
Trapping is a traditional right in New Mexico. But the world has changed since folks had to trap to survive. Once upon a time, foxes were legitimately considered varmints by people who raised chickens. But there are no more poultry farmers in my neck of the woods. These days, foxes (and coyotes, for that matter) keep the rodent population down, helping suppress Hantivirus and plague.
If the foxes had not taken the bait, chances are one of my dogs would have walked into a trap. It turns out this frequently happens to dogs in New Mexico. And I am not the only person who hikes and walks dogs up that arroyo.
Animal Protection of New Mexico says $671,000 is generated by trapping each year, through licensing, equipment and pelt sales, in pale contrast to the over 9 million dollars generated by wildlife-watching in this state. Guests at Canyon Del Rio have enjoyed spotting the foxes for years.
But with the foxes' cruel deaths, this renewable resource in Jemez Springs is gone. Fox kits are born in February or March, so this pair's offspring may be slowly starving in a den somewhere. What do you think about the fate of our foxes? Animal Protection says a 2005 survey of New Mexicans revealed that a strong majority (63%) are against trapping on our public lands.
Kathleen Phelan
Jemez Springs
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2. Contact your local state representative. Respectfully let them know you are opposed to trapping on public lands. Letters are better than emails. To find out who your state representatives are, please check at this website: http://legis.state.nm.us/lcs/legislatorsearch.asp
3. Contact New Mexico's Game Commission and Director. Respectfully let them know you opposed trapping on public lands. Letters are better than emails. Here is their contact information:
Director, Dr. Bruce Thompson
PO Box 25112
Santa Fe, NM 87504
bcthompson@state.nm.us
4. Contact New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. Respectfully let him know you oppose trapping on public lands. Again letters are better than emails. Here is his contact information:
Governor Bill Richardson
490 Old Santa Fe Trail
Room 400
Santa Fe, NM 87501
Web contact form
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