The Live Trap program allows Las Cruces residents to request use of a trap, free of charge, for the purpose of capturing nuisance stray dogs and cats. An Animal Control officer will deliver and set up the trap upon request, and then remove nuisance animals that are captured.
Animal Control has a limited number of live traps and currently, because the program just restarted, has a standing waiting list for usage of the traps.
Live traps issued by Las Cruces Animal Control are to be used only for the live capture of nuisance dogs and cats. Skunks, squirrels, raccoons, coyotes, bats and other potentially nuisance wildlife are handled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services. Protected wildlife such as bobcats, cougars, javelina, deer, oryx and birds of prey are handled by the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish.
LAS CRUCES – The city will look to create a process by which unowned cats are trapped, sterilized and released back into the community as a means of reducing the flourishing local population of stray and feral felines.
While the overall goal will be to reduce the cat population over the next several years, supporters of the move see it as a more humane process than euthanasia.
On Monday, Las Cruces city councilors agreed during a work session to fast-track a resolution to start such a program rather than wait for it to be implemented as part of a larger overhaul of the city s animal control ordinance.