Officers with the New Mexico Division of Recreation and Fish needed to scrap their plans for an R3 occasion earlier this week that was meant to advertise small-game searching and wildlife images. After asserting the 2024 Squirrel Problem on Monday, the state company acquired quite a lot of complaints from environmentalist teams and anti-hunters, in line with the Santa Fe New Mexican. On Tuesday, the NMDGF canceled the problem.
“This resolution was made due to public misperception relating to the chance’s intent,” NMDGF spokesperson Darren Vaughan tells Outside Life in an emailed assertion. “In addition to a lack of knowledge surrounding rules set by company biologists to preserve squirrel populations.”
The concept that many anti-hunters in New Mexico may not have a full understanding of science-based searching rules is comprehensible. However the truth that a few of these identical individuals had been in a position to quash a comparatively benign occasion simply because it aimed to advertise authorized searching is regarding. It additionally speaks to a bigger motion we’re seeing in a number of states — one which seeks to realign the priorities of state fish-and-game businesses by deemphasizing the function of regulated searching and fishing in wildlife administration and devoting extra sources to non-game species.
Vaughan mentioned the occasion was created to encourage households and youth to get out within the woods and take part in a standard hunt. He pointed to a wealthy historical past of searching squirrels for meals within the Land of Enchantment, and he mentioned it was essential to lift consciousness about alternatives that some residents may not be accustomed to.
Elevating this consciousness has worth as a result of NMDGF, like most different state wildlife businesses, is working to recruit extra hunters. And the company views small-game searching, which isn’t almost as widespread as big-game searching in New Mexico, as one accessible avenue into the game. Squirrels are additionally one of many least harvested small-game species within the state, in line with harvest studies maintained by NMDGF. A report from the 2020-21 searching season exhibits simply over 1,500 squirrels being harvested statewide. That’s in comparison with greater than 21,000 quail and almost 6,000 doves over the identical timespan.
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Vaughan added that the Squirrel Problem had a non-consumptive part as properly. Along with selling an everyman’s hunt and getting extra kids within the sport, NMDGF inspired non-hunters to take part by capturing pictures of squirrels.
It’s unclear what the precise guidelines behind the problem had been, since NMDGF took down webpages and social media posts related to the Squirrel Problem after canceling the occasion. However Vaughan mentioned the essential concept was for contributors to reap or {photograph} every of New Mexico’s 4 squirrel species throughout the state. He mentioned profitable contributors “would have acquired a problem coin commemorating their achievement.” A Google abstract for the now-deleted Squirrel Problem web page additionally contains suggestions and recommendation for the best way to clear and put together squirrels.
What’s abundantly clear is that the Squirrel Problem was not a “wildlife killing contest” as some protestors might need believed. These contests contain contributors making an attempt to kill as many critters (or the most important critters) as attainable inside a specified timeframe for money, prizes, or different incentives. They usually goal varmints and predators like coyotes, bobcats, foxes, and prairie canine. They’re additionally unlawful in New Mexico, and have been since 2019.
This key distinction was not sufficient to allay the issues of some squirrel-sensitive New Mexicans, nonetheless. Denise Fort, who serves on the board for Wildlife for All, instructed the New Mexican that though she helps looking for meals, she didn’t assume the Squirrel Problem incentivized consuming the harvested squirrels. Wildlife for All is a New Mexico-based group pushing for state wildlife reform, with roots in animal-rights, rewilding, and deep ecology campaigns. One other opponent of the Squirrel Problem, Sierra Membership board member Mary Katherine Ray, known as the occasion “outrageous.”
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It’s exhausting to say what a correct incentive would have been in Fort’s eyes, and it might appear she’s unfamiliar with the wanton waste legal guidelines that apply to hunters throughout the nation. It’s unlawful in New Mexico to “fail to move the edible elements of a recreation animal … to your property for human consumption.”
No matter what Fort’s emotions are relating to lawful looking for meals, she appears to have a historical past of treating squirrels as pets moderately than the wild critters they’re. In her interview with the Santa Fe newspaper, Fort spoke of fond childhood reminiscences of feeding squirrels in city Chicago, the place it’s unlawful to feed deer however authorized to feed squirrels — even by hand. Santa Fe is a great distance from Chicago, nonetheless, and similar to with wanton waste, the state of New Mexico has some fairly robust emotions about feeding squirrels and different wildlife.
“What many don’t understand is that feeding wildlife is dangerous for the animals and harmful for individuals,” NMDGF writes on its web site. “It’s additionally in opposition to the regulation in New Mexico if it creates a nuisance for you or another person. There are numerous causes feeding wildlife is a foul concept and making a nuisance is only one.”
This text was up to date on Oct. 10, 2024 to incorporate feedback from the New Mexico Division of Recreation and Fish.