New Mexico Trapping Statistics

County with most trapping: San Juan and Grant, but all NM counties currently have some trapping going on. With bobcat pelt prices as high as they are, it is likely that no bobcat population is not being exploited.

Number of licensed trappers: About 2,000 people buy a trapping license each year. But some of these don’t trap, rather they hunt the animals with dogs or predator calls. This is much harder and results in fewer kills. Trappers who set out traps for coyotes or skunks are not in this figure because no license is required to do that. So no one really knows how many trappers there are.

Number of traps: There is no limit to the number of traps a single trapper can place out. He is required to check them every 24 hours, but there is no oversight. A trapline can be as few as 5 or 6 traps, but can also number in the hundreds. Some trappers like to put several traps very close together. In this way a single animal may be trapped on more than one limb insuring he won’t get away and other animals may hear the struggle and come to investigate and there is a good chance they will be captured too.

Number of each species trapped: In 2007 trapper reporting became “mandatory” but the only penalty for non-compliance was not being able to enter any of the draw , there were no trapping related penalties and compliance fell to only 58%. In 2009, the State Game Commission, at the request of Sierra Club and others, approved a penalty for not reporting of not being able to purchase a trapping license for one year.

From 2006 to 2009, New Mexico killed over 10,000 bobcats which was more than any other western state in the same time period. And the season is longer than any other western state as well. Other states actually monitor population trends unlike NM and some decreased their bag limits and quotas and shortened their seasons because of alarms over the size of the kill and its effects in those states. NM has no bag limit on bobcats, no quota and no idea what the impact has been on our bobcat population.

In addition to a severe rabies outbreak in SW New Mexico, the fox kill has been in the thousands as well. But no one really knows because foxes, unlike bobcats, do not have to be tagged and the only source of our knowledge about trap mortality comes from trapper reports which have been incomplete. There are no bag limits for any fox species either.

Most trapped species in NM: coyote, fox and bobcat.

Most valuable pelt: Bobcat. A single pelt can bring hundreds of dollars in today’s market.

Non-target animals captured: The numbers are not known. No reporting is required and the department of game and fish does not keep records of non-targets. But non-target animals may include porcupines, squirrels, coatis, fawns, birds of all kinds like jays, ravens, raptors, owls, ducks, turkeys, pheasants, quail and songbirds, and domestic animals including livestock, dogs and cats. Endangered animals like the Mexican wolf have also been caught accidentally and on purpose. Even when professionals have set traps for wolves in New Mexico to relocate them, damage has been done that required amputation. Mountain lions and bears that may not be kept by the trapper, but may be caught and injured all the same.

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