If your an Indian you can still rap it n NM. Only closed to whites blacks latinos etc.

That happened last year, and it's got huge potential for the tree huggers to move their agenda forward. The NTA, FTA and several other national organizations are aiding the New Mexico trappers Association in a lawsuit to get this law voided. In a nutshell ( and I'm Paraphrasing) the law says that they are only outlawing trapping on public land for "safety" reasons. The problem for trappers is that most of NM is state or federally owned land. The ramifications of this across the rest of the country are huge. Here in Pennsylvania alone we've got State forests, State Parks and most disconcerting, State Game Lands. The State Game Lands were bought with hunting license fees and some Pittman-Robertson money. These are millions of acres of "public' Land that the antis' could try to get this same kind of law passed.
Does anybody believe that after the antis' get trapping outlawed, for the so-called safety reasons, that they won't go after hunting on public land under those same "safety" reasons? The laws is this country are made by legislators who if they aren't city dwellers, are beholden to city dwellers who don't have a clue about what hunting and trapping really entail.
The decision to go on the offensive against this law, as it was explained to me, was made with the idea that fighting a defensive battle, you're still going to lose a little bit. Each time you lose a little bit, you've still lost. Rather than be defensive, with almost the same expenses, the decision has been made to go on the offensive. You have to applaud the idea that the antis' are going to have to justify their actions with statistics and studies just like they've made the pro trapping/hunting communities come up with over the years.
However, as we all know lawsuits are expensive, now is the time to step up and aid this effort. Join the New Mexico Trappers Association. If you don't want to do that, go to their website and find out how to donate money to the lawsuit fund. If you're not a trapper just remember that after they get the trappers, they're going to be coming for the hunters.

If your an Indian you can still rap it n NM.

Now they are after rapping? What next, country music? I didn't realize that the Native American community had a large group of rappers and thought it was more of an African American thing.

I appreciate the in detail stuff, but I actually disagree with you that giving money is the best way. The best thing from a public employee point of view is for as many people to provide comments, emails, calls and points of view as possible. Since you brought it up, I went and looked when I started the association benefits thread and saw that NM did not have a paid lobbyist for trapping. It's not some convoluted thing, it's quite easy to see what was happening, which was there was 2 or 3 lobbyists for different anti groups for years without a trapping lobbyist. For you guys who said they didn't let trappers testify, it's because there is a procedure and I am almost sure that you guys missed the appropriate procedure time to provide comments. I'm not saying 100% for sure, but I spoke with many people about this NM thing recently because of how upset it makes me. Also you guys need to pay attention to whats happening because if you don't it will put us in a real bind with limited options here. Let me explain.

In Montana there is a lawsuit against essentially the Montana Government and Fish and Game for it's Wolf Management Plan. The basis of the lawsuit is that Montana shouldn't or can't manage the wolf population because of the BLM land. Montana is saying it has total jurisdiction on animals within it's state Boundaries. In New Mexico, the state banned public land trapping with very few exceptions, and there has been suggested that they can't ban trapping on BLM land. You understand the issue here? Trappers love to hate wolves for reasons I wont ever understand especially when we talk about pelt prices of wolves being one of the highest.

I say all of that because remember the national strategy I spoke about in some of my posts? This is what's needed and soon enough there will be one. For now everybody needs to just politely email the legislators that voted no, call them and explain to their staff how bad the trapping ban hurts. Tell them that hey look "I have dogs too, and I don't want them trapped either. How come we don't try a minimum yardage, not feet, but yardage away from the public trail along with no pets during the trapping season and no trapping during the months when it's not trapping season near the paths." More people = wider variety of public opinion which will do way more than to try to put all the eggs in a basket that already lost a battle. The other thing that New Mexico Trappers Association needs to do right now is to get a lobbyist. If you guys know their President, I am more than happy to speak with him/her to explain how to do this without bankrupting the association. We can win, we can do this, but we cannot stop at just "ok cool we defeated the anti's lawsuit". We need to be proactive and seize the initiative and get Hunting, Trapping and Fishing in EVERY state's constitution along with the trap types. That should be every trapper's goal #1, and concurrently we need to lobby the federal legislators to put the same protections in our US Constitution. This will put an end to all the amounts of time wasting and then we can move to actual furbearer management which is where the fight should be in my opinion.

With all due respect, I think you are a bit behind on what unfolded in NM and how it all went down. It wasn't a matter of trappers or trapping supports not speaking up properly or according to the "system". Trappers and supporters of trapping pulled together and did what they could, but this was absolutely a matter of being snowballed during COVID and things not happening according to the system in place as far as public comment and testimony. Reach out to the NMTA and they will tell you what went down. It was politics and government at it's finest.