Hunting Solutions
Changes in elk regulations to be discussed during pubic hearing

By Tom Purdom
Staff Writer

GRANTS — Landowners and hunters who want to hear the latest proposal for the Elk Landowner Sign-up System should be in Grants Tuesday.

The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish has scheduled a public meeting beginning at 6 p.m. in the Cibola Convention Center to discuss the issue.

For years, hunters have complained that the game and fish commission gives the upper hand to landowners when it comes to elk tags. Large landowners sell the tags to guides and outfitters for big money because the elk in New Mexico are huge and attract wealthy hunters from across the nation and even from overseas. Bull elk tags in prime hunting territory command more than $2,500 each.

Even for the do-it-yourself hunter, who still must either draw an elk license in a highly competitive lottery system or buy one of the tags from a landowner, hunting these magnificent animals is not inexpensive.

J.R. Kirkpatrick, chief of the New Mexico Department of Fish and Game Wildlife Management Division said the department has managed the Elk Landowner Sign-up System for landowners providing elk habitat for the past 18 years. "Today, the program has nearly 2500 landowners actively participating in the system," Kirkpatrick said. "The program also issues over 18,000 authorization certificates to private landowners statewide and processes over 100 new applications for sign-up each year."

With such big dollars riding on the system, some ranchers may have taken advantage of the system, and some may have outright bilked the system.

Kirkpatrick said last year the game and fish commission, which sets regulations for the game and fish department, initiated a review of the Elk Landowner Sign-up System to look into concerns of both landowners and sportsmen alike.

Said Kirkpatrick: "Those concerns ranged from ranches claiming depredation to get more authorizations, to ranches doing great things for elk, but not being recognized for it, ranches claiming land they did not own to ranches receiving authorizations when there were few, to no elk on them. There were also concerns about how ranches were rated and how to recognize the contributions made by smaller properties."

The department will be allowed to request a landowner to produce complete ownership documents at any time to ensure that no property is getting authorizations it should not be getting.

Dan Williams, a spokesman for the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish said the meeting is open all sportsmen and landowners. The Grants meeting is the only meeting which will be held in the west central part of New Mexico.