By BEN NEARY
NMWF Conservation Director
A rule that would allow hunting of bears and cougars in New Mexico to continue with little change over the next four years moved a step closer to passage on Friday when the state game commission heard it for the second time. The commission is set to take a final vote on the Bear and Cougar Rule in October.
Consideration of the rule has drawn hundreds of letters to the commission from both supporters and opponents of hunting the animals.
Regardless of what the commission decides on the rule, it appears likely that opponents of bear and cougar hunting will try to get the New Mexico State Legislature to ban at least some hunting methods in its next general session in 2025. Many opponents have said they object to the practice of hunting the predators with hounds.
Biologists with the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish drafted the proposed four-year rule. They say bear and cougar populations can support continued hunting at current levels and even support some increase in certain areas.
Stewart Liley, head biologist with the department, told commissioners that the state has set a maximum allowable bear harvest of 804 animals each year from 2019 to 2022. He said the actual harvest has averaged 624.
John Crenshaw, president of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, testified that he’s been following state regulation of predator hunting since he started as an employee with the game department in the early 1970s. He’s now retired from the agency.
Crenshaw said he’s observed that the game department staff makes its recommendations based on the best information it has. He said the level and quality of that information has increased dramatically over the years.
Crenshaw said opponents of bear and cougar hunting consistently argue that the game department’s recommended harvest limits are too high, and they predict disastrous consequences for the animal populations. However, he said those dire predictions are always proven to be untrue.
“Opponents are nonetheless attacking, again, the agency data and conclusions,” Crenshaw said. “These are the same folks, by the way, who brought us the trapping ban on public lands, which also had no meaningful biological justification.”
The Legislature banned trapping on public lands in 2021. The NMWF opposed the ban.
Crenshaw said bear and cougar populations haven’t been overharvested over the past 50 years. However, he warned commissioners that hunting opponents consistently ignore that fact.
Crenshaw said opponents of the Bear and Cougar Rule aren’t driven by biology. Rather, he said, “personal and organizational hatred of predator- and hound hunting is their prime motivator. They openly acknowledge their ultimate goal is another ban. I’ve see that as a stance taken from the ‘I don’t like it so you can’t do it’ school of wildlife management.”
Among critics of the Bear and Cougar Rule was Chris Smith, with the group WildEarth Guardians.
Smith noted that New Mexico is no longer in the 70s, 80s or 90s. “We’re living through unprecedented times,” he said. “We should all recognize that as we look around our state and see the weather events that are happening.”
Smith said the fundamental question before the commission should be why the state allows hunting of bears and cougars at all. “I don’t know anybody who eats lion,” he said. “I know very few people who eat bear.
“So is this hunting largely for sport, or for a wall trophy?” Smith said. “If so, that’s something the public is largely in opposition to. If this hunting is for something like wildlife management, what are the management goals, are they articulated? Are they to benefit special interests and industries? How are they justified? Is there monitoring, and why isn’t it being carried out by professionals?”
Finally, Smith questioned whether the game commission allows bear and cougar hunting merely to get the license revenue to fund the game department. “If so, we need to be honest about that, but we should also recognize that the North American Model (of Wildlife Management), which the department purports to subscribe to, prohibits the commercialization of wildlife.”
At the end of public comment, Commissioner Fernando Clemente, a wildlife biologist, said the commission needs to consider conservation.
“One of the things I’ve noticed from all the emails and the comments is I don’t believe we’re here to discuss whether hunting or not hunting, all right?” Clemente said. “Hunting is a tool for management. We’re here to discuss about the conservation. We’re not here to discuss preservation. Conservation is the usage of our natural resources, we have to do that, whether we like it or not.”.
In other commission action, Tirzio Lopez, vice chair of the commission, called on Game and Fish Department Director Mike Sloane to brief the commission on his appearance this month before the Legislature’s Natural Resources Committee in Farmington. Sloane appeared before the committee with James Grayson, chief deputy attorney general, and Jesse Deubel, executive director of the NMWF, on Aug. 7 to discuss stream access issues.
The New Mexico Supreme Court last year rejected a game commission regulation that allowed private landowners to get commission certificates stating that rivers and streams that run across their property are private water and closed to the public. The court ruling came in response to a legal challenge brought by the NMWF and partner groups.
In rejecting the commission regulation, the court reiterated its longstanding position that the waters of the state are public. The court has held that the public has the right to fish and recreate on rivers and streams in the state even where they cross private land, provided the public doesn’t trespass on private property to reach the water.
Despite the court ruling, many landowners have persisted in maintaining fences and other obstacles on rivers and streams that cross private lands. Grayson told lawmakers at the meeting that the NM Attorney General’s Office has investigators ready to look into complaints about landowners blocking public access.
Sloane told lawmakers at the committee meeting that he believes the game department still needs direction from the Legislature on how to respond to the court ruling. He said landowners have a right to fence in their cattle and said the court ruling left uncertainty about how far up the banks of a river or stream the public may travel as they use the water.
Several lawmakers at the committee hearing responded to Sloane that they expected him to show leadership and iron out the questions of how to allow public access.
Sloane told commissioners on Friday that the court ruling doesn’t give guidance as to what constitutes reasonable access. He told commissioners that the game department doesn’t have authority over fencing.
Clemente responded that public safety is a concern in any conflict between the public and landowners. “I think something needs to be done within the Legislature,” he said. “I believe that the department has to be a voice for those fishermen, sportsmen, to provide safety.”
Commissioner Sharon Salazar Hickey said she sees competing interests between protecting private property and allowing the public access to public waters. She said she was surprised Lopez had put the matter on the commission agenda and said she saw no need for the commission to consider it.
“The state game commission and the department of game and fish are not law enforcement,” Hickey said.
“We need to put the ball in somebody else’s court, and that is not the state game commission,” Salazar Hickey said.
In fact, conservation officers with the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish are sworn law enforcement officers.
Lopez noted that the regulation the court rejected was enacted by a previous game commission under a previous governor. Even so, he said the current commission has a responsibility to address the situation.
“The agenda was put on here because the public needs to know what was going on,” Lopez said. He said he expects Sloane to work with legislators to address the issue. “We’re going to work with the AG’s office as well, because we are stakeholders in this debacle,” he said.