Take Back Your Elk

[sjl2012]

Do tell. I’m not. Study up on the NM tag allocations and come back if you want to have an intelligent conversation. You are free to debate my opinion about the numbers. But you can’t make up that the numbers are incorrect with no evidence. That you posted the draw quotas as your evidence indicates how little you know about NM tag allocations.

The ranch codes are issued to the landowner first correct?

Then said landowner decides whether he wants to...
1. Use a ranch code himself
2. Give a ranch code to a family member, friend, etc..
3. Sell his ranch code to a family member, friend, etc..
4. Sell his ranch code to an outfitter, broker, NR, etc...

At the end of the day the original decision lies with the landowner(mostly residents), where the ranch code ends up after that is a mute point. A resident of New Mexico received the benefit of that ranch code in the majority of cases which is a benefit of being a stakeholder, some say a more vested stakeholder than a non landowner in New Mexico. To compare numbers from state to state when every state is different is pointless. The percentages of elk habitat, not land, that are public and private vary greatly in each state, there's just not an apples to apples comparison. It doesn't matter which program you pick someone is going to feel slighted, in this case it's the residents that don't own land eligible for ranch codes.

 

[WapitiBob]

So, at the end of the day how do you get the tags into residents hands? As has been mentioned for the last decade, Jennings Law needs to go, E-Plus needs to go, and the quotas need changed. The only way that happens is with legislation, and without the option of an initiative petition, it's going to take a lot of legislators getting on board. And what's to incentivize those legislators?

 

[Big Fin]

So, at the end of the day how do you get the tags into residents hands? As has been mentioned for the last decade, Jennings Law needs to go, E-Plus needs to go, and the quotas need changed. The only way that happens is with legislation, and without the option of an initiative petition, it's going to take a lot of legislators getting on board. And what's to incentivize those legislators?

The one other option hunters seem to leave out when you have disinterested legislators is route of litigation.

Are the Trustees getting a return on the Trust asset (wildlife) that is being allocated to a specific group? Maybe, maybe not. I don't have that answer. Yet, that is the relevant question that must be answered.

If I was a Trustee in NM, either elected/employed/appointed, I would be asking my specialist what is being obtained in return and does it benefit the Trust Corpus and the Beneficiaries in a manner commensurate with what the Trustees have parted with?

If that cannot be supported positively with data and information, I'd be hoping I don't get sued by a Beneficiary. If it can be supported with data and information, I'd have nothing to worry about.

 

[bulldawg10]

Instead AZ and MT provide incentives through open gate programs. Because AZ and MT do not have transferable private land tags there is approx 4 million and 6 million acres of open gate in AZ and MT respectfully. In contrast NM had only 34,500 acres of open gate and about 170,000 acres of EPLUS unit wide.

In 2023, EPLUS Unitwide land opened up over 571,000 acres unit wide. (Not 170,000 as I keep seeing you say)

Total Eplus Acerage in Primary Zone receiving tags in 2023 was ≈1,979,000 aces. (This is deemed Elk Habitat...not just empty acres with EPLUS)

Unitwide EPLUS Land in 2023 was approx 28.86% of the total Primary Zone Eplus Land

You are also intentially misleading people to think somewhere close to the 4 or 6 million acres will be somehow opened if NM was to follow the same model...or something relatively similar.

However, NM appears to have 1/2 or 1/3 of the total acerage available to your example for "potential open gate", at least in private land elk habitat, in the Primary Zone...yet in comparison to AZ, the elk herd is 2x to 3x larger in NM already.

Let's take the smaller number of each. Half as much "potential" open gate land in NM and NM already has at least 2x as many elk...on the conservative end.

Seems to be solid proof NM's program is far exceeding AZ in elk production..as it is the most comparable state from a geographical and water standpoint.

That means, residents in NM are getting more draw opportunities as NM is carrying far more elk than AZ. Mostly because of the EPLUS program encouraging landowner participation and habitat development to sustain larger herds.

 

[WapitiBob]

@Big Fin
Who is/are the Trustee(s )in NM, or any state for that matter? Is it one person, the entire legislature, does anybody know? I have never seen a specific Trustee mentioned outside of your explanations of the trustee/beneficiary relationship. All I ever see is a reference to the "state" as noted below in the excerpt from an Oregon article..

"Although the state can authorize private rights in those resources, all private rights are subject to the state’s sovereign ownership – a public easement – requiring the state to maintain these resources as trustee for the public."

So in the example above, is the "state" all encompasing and an individual or organization would sue the state claiming improper management as trustee?

 

[abqbw]

In 2023, EPLUS Unitwide land opened up over 571,000 acres unit wide. (Not 170,000 as I keep seeing you say)

Total Eplus Acerage in Primary Zone receiving tags in 2023 was ≈1,979,000 aces. (This is deemed Elk Habitat...not just empty acres with EPLUS)

Unitwide EPLUS Land in 2023 was approx 28.86% of the total Primary Zone Eplus Land

You are also intentially misleading people to think somewhere close to the 4 or 6 million acres will be somehow opened if NM was to follow the same model...or something relatively similar.

However, NM appears to have 1/2 or 1/3 of the total acerage available to your example for "potential open gate", at least in private land elk habitat, in the Primary Zone...yet in comparison to AZ, the elk herd is 2x to 3x larger in NM already.

Let's take the smaller number of each. Half as much "potential" open gate land in NM and NM already has at least 2x as many elk...on the conservative end.

Seems to be solid proof NM's program is far exceeding AZ in elk production..as it is the most comparable state from a geographical and water standpoint.

That means, residents in NM are getting more draw opportunities as NM is carrying far more elk than AZ. Mostly because of the EPLUS program encouraging landowner participation and habitat development to sustain larger herds.

 

[abqbw]

My figures on unit wide are straight from NMDGF. But the acres of unit wide doesn’t even matter because unit wide is not a balanced private/public partnership like most open gate in other states. The private privileges and benefits greatly exceed the public benefits. The reason is choosing unit wide or ranch only is up to the landowner. The incentive to accept the public on private land with unit wide is greatly skewed toward gaining much more private benefit by being able to sell private permits valid unit wide.

Comparing NM to AZ and saying NM is better for public hunters, especially resident, is laughable.

NM has almost 47% more elk permits total than AZ. But only 3% more resident permits. But if you back out the privatized (EPLUS and outfitter set aside) licenses purchased by New Mexicans wealthy enough to buy them, NM has 12% LESS public resident permits than AZ. That is with 47% more elk permits total!

NM has 558% more nonresident permits. Even with 47% more permits than AZ, NM has 48% less public nonresident permits than AZ.

 

[abqbw]

You said “In 2023, EPLUS Unitwide land opened up over 571,000 acres unit wide. (Not 170,000 as I keep seeing you say)”

But here is the NMDGF Asst Chief of Private Land Program’s 1/9/23 email response to my public information request about unit wide and open gate. You can see he says that there are 171,724 deeded acres that are EPLUS unit wide.

I don’t know where you are getting 571,000 acres of unit wide? But I’m going to take the NMDGFs Asst Chief of Private Land Programs word for it. Especially since it was in response to a formal Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) request.

Another way to look at unit wide is that in exchange for 171k acres of private land access for public tag holders, the private tag holders gain access to who knows how many millions of acres of public land. Unit wide is immensely out of balance in favor of private interests. Of course there are many specific instances where unit wide is a good deal for the public. But they are the exceptions that prove the rule that unit wide is a rip-off of the public. Any way you slice the mustard, Unit wide is designed and functions as a way to inflate the value of elk permits for landowners that don’t have valuable private land hunting access to sell. So NM just let’s them sell public land hunting access through their private permits.

 

[abqbw]

@Big Fin
Who is/are the Trustee(s )in NM, or any state for that matter? Is it one person, the entire legislature, does anybody know? I have never seen a specific Trustee mentioned outside of your explanations of the trustee/beneficiary relationship. All I ever see is a reference to the "state" as noted below in the excerpt from an Oregon article..

"Although the state can authorize private rights in those resources, all private rights are subject to the state’s sovereign ownership – a public easement – requiring the state to maintain these resources as trustee for the public."

So in the example above, is the "state" all encompasing and an individual or organization would sue the state claiming improper management as trustee?

There are many public trustees. For instance, The game commission as a whole and as individuals function as public trustees. A public trust suit against EPLUS would probably name the game commission because EPLUS is a game commission rule. Technically such a suit would probably be over the ElK Rule because the elk permits are made private in the Elk Rule. The so called EPLUS rule mostly functions to divide among private landowners the elk permits that are made private by the Elk Rule.

 

[Big Fin]

@Big Fin
Who is/are the Trustee(s )in NM, or any state for that matter? Is it one person, the entire legislature, does anybody know? I have never seen a specific Trustee mentioned outside of your explanations of the trustee/beneficiary relationship. All I ever see is a reference to the "state" as noted below in the excerpt from an Oregon article..

"Although the state can authorize private rights in those resources, all private rights are subject to the state’s sovereign ownership – a public easement – requiring the state to maintain these resources as trustee for the public."

So in the example above, is the "state" all encompasing and an individual or organization would sue the state claiming improper management as trustee?

Trustees are whoever has power, under that state's laws, to manage the wildlife assets held in Trust for the citizen-beneficiaries. They can be elected, appointed, or hired/employed. That is surely the Legislature by laws enacted, possibly the Governor via executive actions, surely the Wildlife Commission, and also the senior staff employed by the wildlife agency.

The State is not all encompassing. The State's rights are not absolute. The State's get sued often. Trustees, including public officials cause the entity of which they are Trustee to get often get sued. When you read that a court ruling held that governmental decision/action was made did not reflect the best interest of the public, those entrusted (Trustee) with the public's (beneficiaries) interest failed to do what they should.

The definition of the Trustee-Beneficiary relationship imposed on the State is even more defined in our wildlife cases. I might be wrong, but I expect in the next ten years there will be cases of Trustees of our Public wildlife getting sued for ignoring, or being ignorant of, their Trustee duties.

 

[abqbw]

Trustees are whoever has power, under that state's laws, to manage the wildlife assets held in Trust for the citizen-beneficiaries. They can be elected, appointed, or hired/employed. That is surely the Legislature by laws enacted, possibly the Governor via executive actions, surely the Wildlife Commission, and also the senior staff employed by the wildlife agency.

The State is not all encompassing. The State's rights are not absolute. The State's get sued often. Trustees, including public officials cause the entity of which they are Trustee to get often get sued. When you read that a court ruling held that governmental decision/action was made did not reflect the best interest of the public, those entrusted (Trustee) with the public's (beneficiaries) interest failed to do what they should.

The definition of the Trustee-Beneficiary relationship imposed on the State is even more defined in our wildlife cases. I might be wrong, but I expect in the next ten years there will be cases of Trustees of our Public wildlife getting sued for ignoring, or being ignorant of, their Trustee duties.

I guarantee that NM Trustees will be sued over EPLUS within the next ten years. Unless they implement serious reform.

 

[abqbw]

The one other option hunters seem to leave out when you have disinterested legislators is route of litigation.

Are the Trustees getting a return on the Trust asset (wildlife) that is being allocated to a specific group? Maybe, maybe not. I don't have that answer. Yet, that is the relevant question that must be answered.

If I was a Trustee in NM, either elected/employed/appointed, I would be asking my specialist what is being obtained in return and does it benefit the Trust Corpus and the Beneficiaries in a manner commensurate with what the Trustees have parted with?

If that cannot be supported positively with data and information, I'd be hoping I don't get sued by a Beneficiary. If it can be supported with data and information, I'd have nothing to worry about.

I think NM public trustees are vulnerable because of the degree and scale of privatization they have created.

EPLUS is like a trustee for a simple private trust paying $10,000 an hour to an accountant. Accounting services are necessary and benefit the trust beneficiaries. But they can be had for a couple hundred dollars an hour.

In the same way a state can provide benefits to private landowners to enhance wildlife to benefit the public. But private and public privileges and benefits must be balanced. NM is “paying” landowners $10,000 an hour with our elk when the “services” can be had for $100 an hour.

All one has to do is compare the scale of and absence of direct public benefit within NM privatization to the other western states to show our public trustees come up far too short on the public benefit side of the equation and far too long on the private benefit and profit side.

 

[bulldawg10]

My figures on unit wide are straight from NMDGF. But the acres of unit wide doesn’t even matter because unit wide is not a balanced private/public partnership like most open gate in other states. The private privileges and benefits greatly exceed the public benefits. The reason is choosing unit wide or ranch only is up to the landowner. The incentive to accept the public on private land with unit wide is greatly skewed toward gaining much more private benefit by being able to sell private permits valid unit wide.

Comparing NM to AZ and saying NM is better for public hunters, especially resident, is laughable.

NM has almost 47% more elk permits total than AZ. But only 3% more resident permits. But if you back out the privatized (EPLUS and outfitter set aside) licenses purchased by New Mexicans wealthy enough to buy them, NM has 12% LESS public resident permits than AZ. That is with 47% more elk permits total!

NM has 558% more nonresident permits. Even with 47% more permits than AZ, NM has 48% less public nonresident permits than AZ.

Anyone that wants to see the Unitwide acres is over 300% more than he claims, it is easy.

Download the landowner list showing the Base / SCR breakdown of tag authorizations. This is publicly available every year online.

Then filter it to UW properties and add it all up.

You also can see exactly what tag authorizations each property got in the program.

 

[sjl2012]

My figures on unit wide are straight from NMDGF. But the acres of unit wide doesn’t even matter because unit wide is not a balanced private/public partnership like most open gate in other states. The private privileges and benefits greatly exceed the public benefits. The reason is choosing unit wide or ranch only is up to the landowner. The incentive to accept the public on private land with unit wide is greatly skewed toward gaining much more private benefit by being able to sell private permits valid unit wide.

Comparing NM to AZ and saying NM is better for public hunters, especially resident, is laughable.

NM has almost 47% more elk permits total than AZ. But only 3% more resident permits. But if you back out the privatized (EPLUS and outfitter set aside) licenses purchased by New Mexicans wealthy enough to buy them, NM has 12% LESS public resident permits than AZ. That is with 47% more elk permits total!

NM has 558% more nonresident permits. Even with 47% more permits than AZ, NM has 48% less public nonresident permits than AZ.

@abqbw

Does the resident landowner who receives the ranch code benefit from EPLUS or not? Doesn't matter if he's wealthy or owns 15 acres that he receives a tag through the SCR lottery for. Does he receive benefit and does he have the option of turning that tag into a resident tag?

You're picking a battle with EPLUS but your battle should be over transferable vouchers. At the end of the day New Mexican landowners, mostly residents, are receiving benefit of these tags, as they should being beneficiaries.

If they were selling/giving 80% of them to residents you wouldn't be able to make the argument that you're making. The landowners with property that have elk habitat have a choice, as some feel they should. You're wanting to take away their choice which is essentially pitting the landowner vs other residents.

At the end of the day there is a resident or landowner benefitting from those tags, that part can't be denied. Neither can the numbers that say NMDGF is managing the elk herd properly and effectively by using the EPLUS system.

The argument is a resident argument and the only way it gains traction is you convince residents that they will have access to private land tags, honestly the only way that happens is through a subsidy by the state to private landowners, which is what you say EPLUS is. Which is cheaper to the general public? Giving the landowners vouchers or paying them $10 an acre for access? Which one of those options will the non hunting taxpayer endorse?

 

[abqbw]

The ranch codes are issued to the landowner first correct?

Then said landowner decides whether he wants to...
1. Use a ranch code himself
2. Give a ranch code to a family member, friend, etc..
3. Sell his ranch code to a family member, friend, etc..
4. Sell his ranch code to an outfitter, broker, NR, etc...

At the end of the day the original decision lies with the landowner(mostly residents), where the ranch code ends up after that is a mute point. A resident of New Mexico received the benefit of that ranch code in the majority of cases which is a benefit of being a stakeholder, some say a more vested stakeholder than a non landowner in New Mexico. To compare numbers from state to state when every state is different is pointless. The percentages of elk habitat, not land, that are public and private vary greatly in each state, there's just not an apples to apples comparison. It doesn't matter which program you pick someone is going to feel slighted, in this case it's the residents that don't own land eligible for ranch codes.

What you miss in your argument is that a resident landowners etc have no special or enhanced beneficiary status beyond every other New Mexican. As soon as the state gives them the permit to keep, sell, barter they are no longer within their resident entitlement.

By your argument NM could give all elk permits to resident landowners to sell without running afoul of the public trust.

You also confuse stakeholder with beneficiary. All public trust beneficiaries are all stakeholders but not all stakeholders are beneficiaries. Ted Turner who owns who knows how many hundred of thousands of acres in NM, and receives who knows how many 100s of private landowner authorizations is less of a public wildlife trust beneficiary than a two day old New Mexican born into a family that owns no land whatsoever.

There is no such thing as a “more vested” interest in New Mexico’s wildlife. By landownership or otherwise. All residents are equal beneficiaries. Legally there is no special class. And that is where New Mexico has gone off the rails. It has created a special class without justifiable return to the actual beneficiaries.

 

[bulldawg10]

He miskeyed a 1 instead of a 5 at the start of 571,000 acres of unitwide deeded land..if that email is real @abqbw.


And you know it and you are running with it. I know you know how to use the landowner list. It is right there and adds up to 571k acres, not 171k acres.

 

[Benfromalbuquerque]

@abqbw I don’t know how the former antelope tag A-plus system came to an end. I do believe the current antelope private tag deal also circumvents NAM and effectively makes ranch owners the trustees. Though if E-plus were to stop and private elk were to go the same way as private antelope, it sure would expose the lie of UW tags. Because then the conservation value of the ranch would be limited to the ranch itself and all those reinvested funds for the benefit of wildlife.

 

[abqbw]

He miskeyed a 1 instead of a 5 at the start of 571,000 acres of unitwide deeded land..if that email is real @abqbw.


And you know it and you are running with it. I know you know how to use the landowner list. It is right there and adds up to 571k acres, not 171k acres.

Perhaps you are correct about the acreage? I went back and forth with the guy at NMDGF about the figure several times and he never corrected it. You are wrong that “I know it” and am running with it.

I am very careful to not cook numbers to support my opinions. I know it would be discovered and that would delegitimize my figures and opinions based on those figures. As you are trying to do here.

Unfortunately no sleight of hand or sophistry is required to show how one-sided New Mexico privatization is favor of private interests NM. By any objective measure nothing like it exists in the west except in NM. Colorado is the only state that is close.

For instance, one private ranch in Arizona, the Big Boquillas, provides almost as much public tag private land access as all of your 571k acres unit wide EPLUS in NM. Without any private landowner permits being given to the landowner. The Big Bo is 750,000 acres. 500,000 deeded and 250,000 state. By agreement with AZGFD, any public tag holder can access the ranch to scout and hunt for a fee of $165. The ranch opens to hunter access during early August and stays open through December. For $165 a hunter with a tag valid during December can scout, camp, or hunt the ranch for almost 5 months. It’s like a Vermejo scale ranch with world class elk and pronghorn hunting. All by public tags. But under the NM model the tags are handed to Vermejo with no public hunting access required.

 

[Treeshark]

I am very careful to not cook numbers to support my opinions.

You’re just trying to get a rise out of me now, aren’t you?

 

[sjl2012]

I am very careful to not cook numbers to support my opinions. I know it would be discovered and that would delegitimize my figures and opinions based on those figures. As you are trying to do here.

Kind of like the real estate ad for the 40 ac place that gets 15 tags. A little bit of research proved that wrong, fake, disingenuous in a few short minutes but not before it got thrown out as fact on a podcast and internet thread....