NM's flawed EPLUS system privatizes elk hunting

Problems with New Mexico’s elk management system go far beyond the information presented in Alaina Mencinger’s Sept. 25 report, “Frustrated landowners sue state over damage caused by elk.”

Mencinger reported on ranchers suing over New Mexico’s so-called EPLUS system — Elk Private Land Use System. I agree with the ranchers quoted that New Mexico’s system of elk management is broken, but for different reasons.

New Mexico’s wildlife belongs to all the people of the state – not just to landowners and not just to the wealthy. Yet EPLUS privatizes our elk and even privatizes thousands of public land hunts. No other state allows this.

Last year, New Mexico gave 35% of its total elk licenses to landowners who, in turn, sold or transferred three-quarters of those licenses to nonresidents. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of New Mexico resident hunters, who are most often looking to fill the freezer, had to sit home without a chance to hunt.

EPLUS breeds conflict. A strong elk-management system should facilitate cooperation between the public and private landowners. But EPLUS offers public assistance to private landowners by taking away public hunting opportunities.

There is a better way to manage elk.

Other states in the West, including neighboring Arizona, allocate all licenses publicly and limit nonresident hunters to a maximum of 10% of licenses. Landowners in those states may charge trespass fees to hunters to access their lands. This is the standard system across the West. New Mexico uses it for our other big game species and it works.

New Mexico allows landowners to kill elk or other wildlife without a license if they claim the animals are damaging their property. At least two of the ranchers mentioned in the article have done exactly that.

Mencinger’s article quotes Rio Arriba County rancher Dave Sanchez as saying elk are “completely annihilating” the ranching industry.

In 2003, Sanchez was kicked off the state Livestock Board and the state Agricultural Advisory Board after gunning down 19 elk in Rio Arriba County and leaving most of them to rot, according to an Albuquerque Journal story from the time.

Rancher Zeno Kiehne, also featured in the article, temporarily lost his ability to receive licenses in the EPLUS system recently after he, too, killed elk he said were harming his lands.

New Mexico hunters pay into a fund to provide ranchers with fencing and other improvements. The state also can schedule depredation hunts to make sure that when elk are killed, they don’t go to waste. Unfortunately, the conflict created by EPLUS makes it hard to develop such cooperative solutions.

The New Mexico Wildlife Federation and the New Mexico Chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers have analyzed New Mexico’s elk management. Here are highlights of their findings:

• Nonresidents get more than three-quarters of EPLUS licenses.
• Nearly 20% of EPLUS licenses allow hunters to hunt public lands in the same game management unit as the ranch property.

In addition to EPLUS, New Mexico sets aside 10% of public draw licenses for hunters who contract with an outfitter. Nonresidents get some 90% of those licenses. Outfitters survive in other states without such a welfare program.