OPINION: Department of Game & Fish needs new tools and more funding

In New Mexico, we cherish wildlife, which is deeply tied to our cultural traditions and contributes to our $3.2 billion outdoor recreation economy through hunting, fishing, birdwatching, and more.

New Mexicans care about protecting this natural bounty because we know thriving wildlife populations keep us healthy and help safeguard the air, land, and water in rural and urban communities.

Sadly, our current wildlife management system is outdated and underfunded. That’s why a broad coalition has come together to support a three-pronged reform package to build a wildlife management system for the 21st century.

We must begin by updating the New Mexico Department of Game & Fish’s mission to reflect New Mexicans’ growing appreciation for watching, photographing and otherwise enjoying wildlife. While the department staff is doing great work with the resources it has, it is trying to do a modern job with an outdated system and insufficient funds, while lacking clear legislative authority to manage all wildlife species.

This, combined with a patchwork of outdated laws, leaves many species unprotected and vulnerable to threats like wildfires, flooding and drought. Updating the mission would not change any existing laws affecting hunters, anglers, or private landowners, but would simply give the department more authority and flexibility to carry out its important wildlife conservation work.

The second piece is to fix the State Game Commission. This independent governing body was designed to shield wildlife management from politics, but today, the system is broken. Good faith negotiations have resulted in a new proposal that would retain executive authority for the governor to appoint commissioners, while ensuring the Legislature and citizens, including wildlife experts and tribal communities, have input on candidates.

Senate Bill 5 would establish qualifications for education and expertise, while maintaining a balance of urban and rural interests and ensuring the voices of farmers, ranchers, hunters, anglers, biologists and wildlife conservationists are represented. Reforming the commission has had strong bipartisan support in the past, and we hope it will again this session.

Finally, we must solve a looming funding crisis. Currently, the Department of Game & Fish doesn’t receive money from the Legislature to operate – it is funded mainly by hunting and fishing license fees. But those fees haven’t changed in almost 20 years, making the current system unsustainable.

Proposals to make modest increases to license fees have received bipartisan support in the past, and sportsmen organizations support this fee change because they understand it is necessary to ensure healthy populations of game, fish and other wildlife for future generations. This is crucial, but to ensure wildlife conservation does not rest solely on the backs of hunters and anglers, we must also provide a source of non-license fee revenue to the department.

Fortunately, thanks to the leadership of House Appropriations & Finance Committee Chair Nathan Small, there is an opportunity to leverage the state’s Government Results and Opportunity (GRO) fund that gives seed money to promising agency programs. A $10 million investment, spread out over three years, would help recover New Mexico’s native species, so they don’t get put on the federal threatened or endangered list — which is more costly in the end.

We are grateful to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s staff and the Department of Game & Fish for working with a wide variety of stakeholders to find consensus on these issues, and we are confident the reforms we’ve laid out will strike the right balance.

This session, we hope the governor and Legislature will come together to give the department the tools, authority and funding it deserves to build a 21st century wildlife management system for New Mexico.

Judy Calman is the New Mexico director of policy for Audubon Southwest.