NM is green-lighting too many bear killings

ANOTHER JEWEL of wisdom from the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish: If you shoot an animal in its home and don’t kill it, but only wound it, it could be “dangerous.” If you support the killing of (often) over 600 bears a year in our state with the average age in many zones being less than 4 years old, or sub-adult, then this (letter) may not interest you. If, however, you are in the majority and do not support the continued slaughter of our bears, please take advantage of the Game Commission’s comment period on bear kills and let it know via this email: DGF-Bear-Cougar-Rules@ state.nm.us.

Right now, we are the only state that allows for the legal killing of a bear cub that is only 12 months old, still nursing on its mother. We chase them with hound packs of 20-plus dogs fitted with telemetry collars, and linked to the hunters’ phones and laptops via satellites, which enables them to take their four-wheelers right up to the tree where the dogs have the bear trapped and shoot the bear dead. Many of our zones have average “harvest” ages of females that indicate they are being killed before they can have their first cubs. If you were a bear in New Mexico, balanced against human years, your life expectancy would be about 14 years old.

We are the only state that counts a phone call about a bear as a “bear depredation,” which is where the NMDGF manipulates “depredation” data to justify the outrageous bear-kill numbers. They have allowed for the killing of just under 5,000 bears in just the past six years! Ten years ago, the NMDGF estimated our state’s bear population at 5,000-6,000. Our state mammal, ironically the emblem worn on the patches of our Game and Fish officers, is being destroyed for money. Please write the commission during this public comment period and let them know how you feel. CRAIG MCCLURE Albuquerque Craig McClure is president of the Black Bear Bureau.