Wildlife

As we prepare for the 2021 Legislature and the reintroduction of Roxy’s Law to prohibit traps and poisons from public land, already three dogs that have been caught in traps and a gruesome discovery of skinned coyote carcasses are indications of the toll ahead for wildlife and pets as the trapping season is underway ...

Mexican wolves, the most imperiled canine species in the world, have made progress in the last three months but have also suffered setbacks. In May, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that a record 20 pups were cross-fostered from captive wolves into wild dens. FWS has been using this practice to insert profoundly needed genes from the captive population into the wild. Cross-fostering requires that pups from captivity be within days of the same age as pups in the wild, which means that wolf managers have to move quickly. The genetic bottleneck of the wild population is one of the largest looming threats to wolf recovery.  ...

Scientists estimate the wall’s construction will impact hundreds to thousands of species of animals ...

By Mary Katherine Ray

Two county commissions have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Southern New Mexico.

The Doña Ana County Commission voted in April to prohibit using the county’s federal range-improvement funds to pay the federal agency Wildlife Services for lethal removal of wildlife.

Wildlife Services is a euphemistically named agency whose main purpose is killing wildlife, often using cruel means, from leghold traps to snares to cyanide poison bombs to aerial gunning.

Wildlife Services was not happy with Doña Ana’s decision and pressured the county commission to have another vote. In July, the county watered down its decision to concede that lethal action could be taken, but only after the agency tried nonlethal methods of resolving ...