It may still come as a surprise that today, in 2019, it is still legal in New Mexico to set a steel-jawed leg-hold trap or strangling wire snare in order to catch any one of 16 kinds of native wild animal that includes bobcats, foxes and badgers, for fun and profit.

Trapping is legal nearly statewide with the approval of the State Game Commission by purchasing a $20 license. In recent years, dozens of hikers’ dogs have been caught in traps hidden on land open to the public, including my own. The number of reported incidents is most certainly just the tip of the iceberg. The only incidents the public knows about have…