Take Back Your Elk

[abqbw]

Its interesting how repetitive and nasty the situation is framed in that document. How political. Why can't we ever get a straight faced representation of the issue? As an outsider looking in on the issue with not much knowledge, my reaction to it is "omg, those poor NM residents are getting screwed and this sounds horrible" but I'm guessing its not that simple.

The report is perfectly straight up representation of the reality. Really the document is simply an accounting of everyone elk licenses as they were sold in New Mexico during the 2021 season. If these simple license sales statistics leave you guessing “it’s not that simple” because it seems like something is left out or it seems somehow “untrue” that is an artifact of the reality of New Mexico’s pay-to-play system, not any missing “side of the story”. You can stop guessing, it’s the full and simple story.

However you did stumble into how New Mexico became the most private elk state. Politics. Purely. It is because of the simple fact that New Mexico Governors are literally dictators over the allocation of hunting opportunity between the rich and the poor. And the governors figured out about 5 decades ago that hunting, specifically elk hunting exists in the perfect space where it’s niche enough they can get away with use elk as a campaign slush fund without sustaining too much political damage but valuable enough that it’s worth it political because giving away the elk to the rich pays huge dividends in political fundraising. It’s a simple calculation. It would take a governor with the moral compass on public trust issues to turn their back on the elk cash machine system that grants so much political power that all governors inherit in New Mexico. They private system is so built out that all governors have to do is hold the status quo. Which is what they do. They do it first and foremost through their unilateral control of their game commission. There is a long and perfect tradition of NM governors removing any game commissioners that even think out loud about dialing back private hunting and/or the directly related increase in the share that it’s actually public for NM residents and nonresidents. The flaw in our system that allows such public political malfeasance with the NM public’s elk is that our governors can fire game commissioners with no cause and no explanation. That is exactly what the current governor Michelle Lujan Grisham did to two of the finest and most qualified game commissioners in NM, Joanna Prukop and Jeremy Vesbach. What was their sin? They dared to question the constitutionality of the commission’s stream access rule that blocked public stream access in NM and refused to use it to make public streams private so Lujan Grisham fired them. Lujan Grisham fired them and replaced them with the two least qualified game commissioners in state history. Chair Sharon Salazar Hickey and Vice Chair Deanna Archuleta. Of course this year the state Supreme Court resoundingly ruled what everyone knew, Prukop and Vesbach were correct. The commission’s stream access rule violated the state constitution in making streams private. Commissioner Archuleta doesn’t even live in New Mexico. She is senior federal lobbyist for Exxon and lives in the Washington DC area with her husband who is medical director of a giant healthcare outfit out of Baltimore I believe. She flys in or attends game commission meetings online to do the governors dirty work or keeping public elk out of public hands.


The cast of characters that intervened in the stream access case trying to keep stream access case is the same cast of characters that work very hard to keep New Mexico’s elk and other big game private. We kicked their assess and our entire state government’s ass in the Supreme Court on stream access. And w fully intend to kick their asses on private big game too. This report is a beginning and not an end.

Neither Salazar Hickey nor Archuleta has ever held a hunting license or came into the commission with even basic knowledge of how wildlife and hunting are regulated. For instance Chair Salazar Hickey at I believe her first meeting waxed poetic how taxpayers pay for the game and fish’s budget. No clue how the agency she was just made to most powerful regulator of is funded. They are on the commission for a singular reason. The governor knew she could rely on them to keep our big game private. We went from a Chair of the Commission that writes peer reviewed articles on the public trust doctrine and the North American Model (Prukop) to a Chair that literally doesn’t know what either are (Salazar Hickey).

 

[abqbw]

It's the unit wide eplus tags that I don't like... I know a guy that has 13 acres he gets one pull tag, his land is in the eplus system no one is gonna go hunt his lil piece of private on a unit wide tag. He sells his private land/unit wide tag for a few thousand can't remember the exact number

Unit wide and the granting of highly valuable private permits for public land to relative postage stamp sized properties seems like the most heinous part of our wholesale private system. But it’s not. First, it is only 20% of EPLUS. Second, oddly, it is the only part of our private system (EPLUS, unlimited private land deer, pronghorn, oryx, barbary in the limited area, and 10% across the board outfitter draw set aside) that actually has any public component to it whatsoever. That being of course the public hunter access to the private land. Most of unit wide is like you describe, essentially no benefit to the public because the property either is too small to matter or there are elk during hunting season. But within unit wide there are some real jewels. Like the 36k acres unit wide Adobe Ranch in unit 16C. And quite a few small properties that provide good public land access beyond. But unit wide is strictly voluntary to the landowner. Only landowners decide if they want to provide any public component to balance their private privilege over our wildlife and hunting. There is no requirement to do so. I think the near total lack of direct public benefit in return for private privilege over the public’s wildlife and hunting opportunity is the most egregious sin of our privatization schemes.

 

[abqbw]

“The well healed hunter should be able to hunt elk whenever he or she wants”.

Have you ever even heard of the public trust doctrine and the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation?

What an idiotic comment.

Maybe I misinterpreted your comment? I read “should” as meaning your opinion is that the well healed should be able to but public wildlife and hunting opportunity as a matter of good policy. But maybe what you meant is that there are so many private tags in NM that any rich person CAN buy their way around the public and hunt every year in NM and you think this is wrong. If I misinterpreted your meaning I apologize for say your comment was idiotic.

 

[abqbw]

I really don’t like how in hunttalk forum people have fake names and you don’t know who they are. Especially for a thread about such a public interest issue like elk privatization in New Mexico. When an outfitter, guide, or other recipient of the private largess that is New Mexico, I want to know it.

To that end my name is Brandon Wynn. I live in Albuquerque. My family has been New Mexican for 7 or 8 generations. I helped prepare the takebackyourelk report and my name is on the cover along with the New Mexico Wildlife Federation and The New Mexico Chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. And as if it is worth stating, I abhor New Mexico’s private hunting system that our POS elected and appointed officials have foisted on the NM public for 5 decades. I’ll debate anyone, anywhere, anytime about New Mexico’s private hunting schemes.

 

[abqbw]

I do know a few landowners that don't do that and keep their tags for themselves, friends and family instead of giving over to the greed of money. And the ones I know that do this are jus common pple that arnt wealthy.

Not to be flip, but so what? That does not define the system. The system is designed to and succeeds in the wholesale transfer of the public’s wildlife and hunting to private interests and wealthy hunters. EPLUS makes a mockery of both the public trust doctrine and the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation.

The examples you provide are along the lines of the exception that proves the rule. Besides, the decision by the landowners you cite to keep their landowner permit grant is a decision over a public trust asset that they should not have a decision over.

 

[abqbw]

I figured this would get started eventually. What do you think of New Mexico's EPLUS system?

Take Back Your Elk: New Mexico Gives Huge Share of Elk Licenses to Private Interests

What do you think about it?

 

[abqbw]

I figured this would get started eventually. What do you think of New Mexico's EPLUS system?

Take Back Your Elk: New Mexico Gives Huge Share of Elk Licenses to Private Interests

What do you think about it

 

[Nameless Range]

I'm glad you jumped in @abqbw . IMO the majority of western hunters should be learning from what has happened in NM, and should be rooting for New Mexican's elk to be taken back. It's damned obvious there's a gravity that that model has, and a lot of folks with a lot of power in other states are drawn to it for their own.

 

[abqbw]

So what is the intended outcome here and what will it solve?

The intended outcome is multifaceted. Put heat on New Mexico’s elected and appointed officials to stop their long standing wholesale theft of our publicly owned wildlife and hunting opportunity for the benefit of the fabulously wealthy. Make both New Mexican’s and nonresidents share of our elk hunting opportunity that is allocated by a public process (draw absent outfitter set aside) and without payment to a private individual or entity on par with the other western states.

 

[abqbw]

If I had to guess; a reduction in the non outfitted non res draw and putting those couple tags into the resident draw.

You aren’t going to see outfitters with political clout reduce their opportunities to make money and I think the same can be said for landowners selling their tags not wanting to lose that income

That is wrong. It will be over New Mexicans dead bodies that the unguided nonresident share of tags is reduced. We will only accept and increase in both unguided resident and nonresident draw tags as a share of total elk tags. Which is saying that the increases of public tags for both residents and nonresidents will only come out of the private tags (outfitter draw set aside and private landowner). There will be no transfer of purely public unguided nonresident tags to residents. That would cross a proverbial line in the sand that us New Mexicans will not allow to happen. It is a hill we will die on. You have my personal promise that I will go down in flames before I see that happen.

The reason for this is two fold. First the unguided nonresident share of elk tags is so minuscule already it would do nothing to correct the systemic issue. Screwing our DIY nonresident public tag hunter brothers and sisters will never be our intent. The average nonresident that can’t afford to pay an outfitter for better odds or a landowner (or more likely a tag broker or outfitter) to skip the draw entirely are just as screwed, if not more, by our system as us residents. 60% of 6% is only 3.6% of New Mexico’s elk tags that go to nonresidents that have not paid a private individual (outfitter or landowner) to obtain the tag. Certainly we want to reduce the nonresident share of nearly 40%. But only on the pay-to-play side of the equation. What we are after is an increase of the only 54.5% share of total elk tags that are acquired by a New Mexico resident without paying a landowner or outfitter. But do this only by a reduction of privatized tags, not a transfer from Nonresident unguided draw to resident. We won’t accept that.

As far as outfitters and landowners unwillingness to give up their private largess over our public elk? Hold our beer. I have it on good authority that Governor Lujan Grisham was on the phone reaming the Director of Game and Fish because of the timing of our report right before the election. She isn’t stupid. She knows that there is a paradigm shift coming to New Mexico in how our hunting is allocated. Whether she likes it our not. And she looks like hell for her iron fisted lock down of the wholesale privatization of our wildlife and hunting. She knows that New Mexicans will no longer accept the theft that she had worked very hard to maintain for her rich donors.

 

[abqbw]

I'm glad you jumped in @abqbw . IMO the majority of western hunters should be learning from what has happened in NM, and should be rooting for New Mexican's elk to be taken back. It's damned obvious there's a gravity that that model has, and a lot of folks with a lot of power in other states are drawn to it for their own.

That is a great point that I have been making lately too. All Western state hunters should be very interested in helping to expose and reverse New Mexico’s private system. Us westerners need to stick together on this issue. What westerners should be aware of is that we are the only region where are very ability to hunt is under threat. We have the public land that allows public hunting without private fee payment. Because of this and our unique and highly desirable species we are the only region where nonresident demand to hunt our big game is nearly unlimited and left unchecked by resident quotas and allowed to be fulfilled by privatizations could mean the end of hunting by westerners. We are the only region where New Mexico style privatization could mean we are the only residents that can’t hunt at home. We and other states’ residents do not pose a threat to non western states resident’s ability to hunt their own wildlife in their states. But due to uniquely high nonresident demand for western state tags out very ability to hunt and teach our kids to hunt and raise them in a hunting lifestyle is under immense pressure. Malevolence by New Mexican politicians toward the residents that they represent in theory only is a bad infection that could easily spread. Look at what is going on in Montana. It behooves all of us to end New Mexico’s wholesale privatization and snuff out the very concept of wealth based hunting in this country.

 

[TheTone]

That is wrong. It will be over New Mexicans dead bodies that the unguided nonresident share of tags is reduced. We will only accept and increase in both unguided resident and nonresident draw tags as a share of total elk tags. Which is saying that the increases of public tags for both residents and nonresidents will only come out of the private tags (outfitter draw set aside and private landowner). There will be no transfer of purely public unguided nonresident tags to residents. That would cross a proverbial line in the sand that us New Mexicans will not allow to happen. It is a hill we will die on. You have my personal promise that I will go down in flames before I see that happen.

The reason for this is two fold. First the unguided nonresident share of elk tags is so minuscule already it would do nothing to correct the systemic issue. Screwing our DIY nonresident public tag hunter brothers and sisters will never be our intent. The average nonresident that can’t afford to pay an outfitter for better odds or a landowner (or more likely a tag broker or outfitter) to skip the draw entirely are just as screwed, if not more, by our system as us residents. 60% of 6% is only 3.6% of New Mexico’s elk tags that go to nonresidents that have not paid a private individual (outfitter or landowner) to obtain the tag. Certainly we want to reduce the nonresident share of nearly 40%. But only on the pay-to-play side of the equation. What we are after is an increase of the only 54.5% share of total elk tags that are acquired by a New Mexico resident without paying a landowner or outfitter. But do this only by a reduction of privatized tags, not a transfer from Nonresident unguided draw to resident. We won’t accept that.

As far as outfitters and landowners unwillingness to give up their private largess over our public elk? Hold our beer. I have it on good authority that Governor Lujan Grisham was on the phone reaming the Director of Game and Fish because of the timing of our report right before the election. She isn’t stupid. She knows that there is a paradigm shift coming to New Mexico in how our hunting is allocated. Whether she likes it our not. And she looks like hell for her iron fisted lock down of the wholesale privatization of our wildlife and hunting. She knows that New Mexicans will no longer accept the theft that she had worked very hard to maintain for her rich donors.

Got any push back yet from the tag brokers or application services that love to sell and also themselves use landowner tags?

 

[abqbw]

An elk tag might be cheaper (for the state) than paying crop damage to land owners for the herd of elk that summers in their alfalfa fields. If you take that tag away you are going to have to offer something else in its place.

If an outfitter is buying tags from a landowner and offering private land hunts that is reducing public land crowding. I think every state offers some sort of landowner Habitat incentive for tags. And that tag market is simply economics. How much does someone want to pay ?

There is no privatization system in a western statethat even approaches New Mexico’s in scale and the near total lack of public component in return for private privilege over the resident owned wildlife. What you are saying is that somehow New Mexico is unique among the western states and the public uniquely owes private compensation for the existence of wildlife. I reject that notion based on the numerous examples of western states meeting their public trust obligations over their wildlife and allocating hunting opportunity to the owners, residents, through a public process. Two of the greatest hunting states, Montana and Arizona, with gold standard wildlife management, send 88% and 92% of all elk tags respectively to their resident hunters through a public process that only requires payment of state application and license fees. New Mexico is proven to be an unnecessary aberration of privatization and wealth based hunting opportunity allocation. It is the excuse that has long been used to steal our wildlife and hunting opportunity. Your prognostication of disaster-if-public is just regurgitated propaganda by the privateers (New Mexico’s elected and appointed officials) to effect the heinous theft of our public elk and other big game resource.

 

[abqbw]

Wildlife privatization is a rapidly expanding trend in North America. Moneyed interests see how efficiently TX, NM, CO, UT and MT convert their wildlife into economic gain in their states and want the same in other places.

Somewhere like IA where a NR auction tag for WT sells for 25k the state “wastes” the potential $$$ to landowners, outfitters, investors, and others by allowing its residents to enjoy hunting at low cost. Calls to change that system grow louder every year from politicians influenced by wealthy out-of-state donors.

Big game in NM has become so “sold out”, I would not be surprised to see a NM citizen’s ballot initiative some day:

“Whereas wildlife in NM belong to the citizens of NM, they are to be held in a public trust for the benefit of the citizens of NM. Any and all permits, tags, and/or license to kill a big game animal in NM shall be made available to any resident of NM through a lottery.”

If LO’s and outfitters get free tags to sell or do whatever they please with, why should the same privilege not be extended to every NM citizen?

#sharethewealth

Unfortunately New Mexico’s constitution does not allow for ballot initiative. Only referendum. That is to say citizens can only strike laws. Not make them. And even the referendum process is so cumbersome that it had only been attempted like twice in state history and failed both times. I’m sure that having the citizens boxed up so tight has something to do with the success of our politicians public trustee crimes against us.

 

[abqbw]

Nothing new, nmwf has been chirping about this for over a decade.

So? It’s more like 3 or 4 decades anyway. As long as the system exists us New Mexicans will “chirp”.

 

[Oak]

What do you think about it?

What do you think about it

You know I'm not supportive of the privatization of public wildlife. I've probably commented on 100 threads on the topic just on this forum over the years.

 

[Wind Gypsy]

Maybe I misinterpreted your comment? I read “should” as meaning your opinion is that the well healed should be able to but public wildlife and hunting opportunity as a matter of good policy. But maybe what you meant is that there are so many private tags in NM that any rich person CAN buy their way around the public and hunt every year in NM and you think this is wrong. If I misinterpreted your meaning I apologize for say your comment was idiotic.

My interpretation was that it was just an observation of the current situation and not an advocation or opinion on how things ought to be.

 

[hank4elk]

To throw some more fuel on the fire, the "Ranch Only" tags are not Private Land Only tags as far as I know. They are based on the ranch boundaries in the EPlus application and I am pretty sure that any state or BLM leased lands within the ranch boundaries can be hunted with the landowner tags.

That isn't the case with the Deer and Antelope private land only tags, they are only valid on deeded private land.

The Ranch Only term means just that. Applications are for DEEDED LANDS ONLY, your other 2 sections of BLM or STL do not count in the acreage total of ranch.

Unit Wide applicants have to open the ranch up to public except the personal use exclusions, around the ranch house , etc.



Right now there is an outfitter camp on a neighbors place and they have been driving & hunting all the public land around here and traveling on posted private roads. Saw 2 others like it yesterday on my way up and back to Zuni.
Dozens of hunters.
There may be a handful of NR draw tags in that bunch. That's all there is, a handful of tags. So most of these guys are NR hunting on LO tags and most likely RO tags.
On public lands. Poaching.
NM outfitters.

I have not seen a warden around Quemado or Pie Town in many months, except at the gas station.

Pretty much screwed up the local gals MB hunt on my RO place, the side by sides on my road at day break herding the elk back down the valley...private posted road.

I'll just sit this out from now on. I have commented. I knew I never should have on HT as a E-plus ranch.
Good Luck and Good Hunting all!

 

[abqbw]

My interpretation was that it was just an observation of the current situation and not an advocation or opinion on how things ought to be.

Right. I apologize for the misinterpretation on my part.

 

[abqbw]

This is why I quit applying there, simply not worth it.

I understand the sentiment. But although our tags are extremely difficult to draw, NM is one of the cheapest states to apply in and if you draw the hunting can be fabulous. Especially for elk. Also, absent any sort of preference or bonus system you are always on equal footing with everyone else in your applicant class. I encourage nonresidents to always apply in NM for these reasons.