Report: Wealthy, out-of-state hunters favored in elk license system
Oct. 5—A new report says the state's current system of granting elk hunting licenses favors the wealthy and out-of-state residents over New Mexicans.
Using a year's worth of data from the state Game and Fish Department, the report compiled by two state wildlife groups says more than 35 percent of the 36,162 licenses issued in 2021 went to out-of-state hunters.
That leaves many New Mexican hunters who take part in annual draws for elk licenses "skunked" out of the system, the report says.
"New Mexico's unfair system of allocating elk licenses is destroying our state's cherished hunting traditions," says the report by the New Mexico Wildlife Federation and the New Mexico Chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers.
The issue is not just about residents versus nonresidents but "the average New Mexican versus wealthy people," said Jesse Deubel, executive director of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation.
Much of the problem, he said, revolves around the game commission's use of the Elk Private Land Use System of issuing licenses to private landowners who have elk on their land and want licenses to hunt them. The law allows those landowners to sell those licenses to anyone and sidesteps the annual elk hunting license draw every spring.
About 38 percent of all elk hunting licenses are issued through the EPLUS program. The rest are issued through the draw.
Of the draw participants, 6 percent are set aside for out-of-state residents and another 10 percent are set aside for local and out-of-state outfitting companies. Those policies, while legal, privatize and even commercialize the hunt, Deubel said, adding they keep some New Mexico hunters from putting food on their tables.
Of the 15,356 licenses issued in 2021 through EPLUS or outfitter procedures, 76.5 percent went to hunters who do not live in New Mexico, the report says.
Asked to comment on the study, Ryan Darr, a spokesman for the state Game and Fish Department, wrote in an email the agency was preparing a response, though none was received Tuesday.
The way the state Game and Fish Department handles the elk-hunting system has drew critical response before. A 2020 Legislative Finance Committee report said "the EPLUS program overwhelmingly benefits out-of-state hunters."
Noting the state Game and Fish Department is required by statute to offer at least 84 percent of all available licenses to New Mexicans through the public draw, that report said based on the way the licensure system is set up, in-state residents purchased 74 percent of the elk licenses issued from 2017 to 2019, nonresidents purchased 21 percent and hunters with outfitter contracts purchased 5 percent.
"That seems to go against the legislative intent that 84 percent of available licenses be offered to New Mexico residents," the committee report said.
Deubel said he believes private landowners can sell the licenses they get from the state for upward of $10,000. A search of online elk hunting services provided by an array of outfitters indicates they charge at least $5,000 and sometimes many thousands more to arrange such hunts, depending on how many days the hunter wants to go.
Deubel said regardless of whether the hunter is a New Mexico resident, landowner licenses could go to the highest bidder and "if you can't afford $15,000 for one of those tags," you might be out of luck.
Ray Trejo, southern outreach coordinator for the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, said the entire elk hunt licensing system should be reformed to give more New Mexicans a better shot at getting an elk permit.
"The monetization of our wildlife is beginning to feel like the European model, where only the rich can hunt," he said.
Trejo said when more than 13,800 tags are taken off the draw and go into the EPLUS system to start with, many hunters he knows don't even submit their names for consideration.
