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Can’t draw a big game tag?
Tired of not being able to draw a tag? You’re not alone. New Mexico hunters’ odds of drawing a resident antelope tag are about 5 percent - that’s one tag every 20 years! Your odds of drawing an elk tag have also gotten so low that many hunters have stopped trying.
Why? There are two main reasons.
First, New Mexico is unlike any other western state and gives away a large percentage of elk and antelope licenses as “transferable authorizations.” The State Game Commission has set up a system where private individuals control access not only to their land, but to scarce hunting tags as well. For antelope, the Game Commission allows private individuals to control access to 70 percent of all available tags, leaving only about 30 percent allocated through the Big Game Draw. The Game Commission, which is appointed by the governor, decides what percentage of elk and antelope tags go to landowners; whatever licenses remain then go into the draw.
Second, New Mexico has the most liberal allocation of hunting licenses to nonresident hunters in the West. Most states set aside about 10 percent of their big game tags for nonresidents; New Mexico’s nonresident quota is 22 percent. That quota was established by the state Legislature.
Combined, these two systems have made odds so low for drawing big game tags that action is necessary. New Mexico Wildlife Federation has been working to increase hunting opportunity on several fronts:
* Since 1914 we have been fighting to ensure that habitat on our public lands remains healthy and productive and that we have access to those lands to hunt and fish.
* More recently we have been digging into state documents to show where the tags go and why.
* After discovering the basic facts, we started prodding the State Game Commission to provide more hunting opportunity for residents by allocating a greater percentage of antelope and elk tags to the Big Game Draw.
* We have been working with the Department of Game and Fish to help reform the state depredation law, which has been used by some unscrupulous landowners to get big game tags - transferable authorizations that come out of the draw and go directly to the landowners.
But we need your help. We need sportsmen like you to help turn things around in New Mexico and make it easier for your kids to draw a tag than it is for you.
Sign up for our Sportsman’s Action Alert. For too long, major decisions affecting your hunting and fishing opportunity have been made without your knowledge or consent. It’s time for New Mexico sportsmen to speak up and be heard, and the Sportsman’s Action Alert is the only place you’ll hear about these issues.
Then join New Mexico Wildlife Federation. We’re the only group willing to go to bat for you at State Game Commission meetings, the Legislature and even Congress. For nearly 100 years we’ve been the sportsmen standing up for New Mexico’s outdoor way of life, and we need your help to keep going for another 100.
Sign up now and make a difference for the future. Click here.
Legislation of note for sportsmen
America’s Commitment to the Clean Water Act would restore protections for the nation’s drinking water and wildlife habitat that were lost after U.S. Supreme Court decisions and actions by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Environmental Protection Agency. Among the areas that have lost protection are some 20 million acres of pothole lakes and playas nationwide that are the foundation of healthy waterfowl populations, as well as streams such as the Mimbres River and Tularosa Creek. Healthy wildlife habitat means jobs: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found that waterfowl hunters alone generated $2.3 billion in economic activity in 2006.