By BEN NEARY
NMWF Conservation Director
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has appointed wildlife biologist Fernando Clemente, Jr. of Sunland Park to fill an at-large position on the New Mexico State Game Commission.
Clemente’s appointment, announced Tuesday, brings the number of sitting commissioners up to four, enough to have a quorum for meetings. The seven-member body has lacked enough members to muster a quorum since former Commission Chair Deanna Archuleta resigned in early February.
In an interview Tuesday with the NMWF, Clemente said he will focus on how to make wildlife management better to benefit public hunters.
“How we can do the programs for education, how we can get better habitat restoration – all of what includes wildlife management,” Clemente said of his approach. “Obviously with the benefit of what is the commission’s responsibility, to manage our wildlife populations for the benefit of our New Mexico residents.”
Clemente holds a bachelor’s degree in wildlife science from New Mexico State University. Through his business, New Mexico Specialized Wildlife Services, he works on public and private lands to improve conditions for agriculture, wildlife, and natural resource conservation.
Clemente has worked with state and federal natural resource agencies in New Mexico and Mexico. He previously has served as a board member of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation.
A release from the governor’s office states that Clemente has served as a professor at La Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua since 2021, and has served as president of
the Sunland Park Chamber of Commerce since 2019. He is also president of the Board of Directors for La Clinica de Familia.
Clemente said he continues to do consulting work for landowners on biology issues.
“I do consulting to maintain the sustainability of our natural resources. How we can help to maximize that sustainability, that’s the reason why I do it,” he said. “I don’t do it for the benefit of one person; it’s for the benefit of our natural resources.”
Clemente’s appointment comes as the New Mexico Legislature is considering a bill to give game commissioner’s protection against being summarily dismissed by the governor. The governor currently appoints all commissioners and may remove them at will.
The game commission reform bill, HB 184, would specify that commissioners could only be removed for cause, similar to university regents. The bill would also require the the Legislative Council to appoint four commissioners while the governor would get to appoint only three. The bill has passed the House and is pending in the Senate.
Several lawmakers have said that recent high turnover and other issues on the game commission make it necessary to increase legislative oversight of the commission.
Joanna Prukop, former commission chair, and former Vice Chair Jeremy Vesbach have both said they were forced out by Lujan Grisham in her first term for failing to support the game commission’s “non-navigable rule.”
The rule purported to allow private landowners to get certificates from the game commission stating that rivers and streams that crossed their private property were non-public water. Some of the landowners who had received certificates under the rule had given campaign contributions to Lujan Grisham. An attempt to reach a spokesperson for Lujan Grisham was unsuccessful on Tuesday.
In response to a legal challenge from the NMWF and other groups, the New Mexico Supreme Court last year held that the non-navigable rule and certificates the commission had issued under it were unconstitutional. The court reiterated its longstanding position that the public has the right to fish on rivers and streams that cross private property provided the public doesn’t trespass on private property to reach the water.
The Supreme Court of the United States announced Monday that it wouldn’t hear arguments from landowners that the state court ruling amounted to a taking of their private property rights.