By Mary Katherine Ray & Teresa Seamster,
Rio Grande Chapter Wildlife Committee
It has taken almost a decade of advocacy, coalition building and meetings to produce a three-part bill that covers the oversight, mission and funding needs of the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. The goal is to meet the coming environmental challenges not imagined when statutes first created the agency and the State Game Commission a hundred years ago.
The widespread support for this bill (SB 5) crafted by state Rep. Matthew McQueen, D-Santa Fe, and with strong advocacy by co-sponsors state Sens. Pete Campos and Crystal Brantley, R-Elephant Butte (a rancher and Republican working to secure additional Republican support), Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, and Rep. Nathan Small, D-Las Cruces, has made the current version going to the governor’s desk.
This legislation overhauls an almost century-old approach, mission and funding source for managing our state wildlife. It provides a framework for better expertise and representation on the State Game Commission, authority to manage all wildlife species as deemed necessary by the newly renamed Department of Wildlife and receive enhanced funding from the Land of Enchantment Fund and newly established GRO (Government Results and Opportunity) fund starting at a combined $6.6 million annually to pay for additional staff and projects.
The bill was amended several times but all the sponsors and members of the large coalition of organizations backing it believe it will still strongly benefit wildlife and that the overall intent of the bill remains intact.
Nevertheless, after waiting on the Governor’s desk for three days, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham vetoed the provision requiring that a Game Commissioner could only be removed for cause. But she signed the rest. Game Commissioners are now Wildlife Commissioners, the commission seat dedicated to a non-game oriented conservationist and the seat dedicated to a wildlife biologist remain. The Governor will still have to choose candidates for the Commission from a list provided by a nominating committee to further help filter politics out of the nomination process. The license fee increases (primarily raised for out-of-state hunters and anglers) will add another $10 million to the agency’s budget, and all wildlife, including pollinating insects and animals like bats and porcupines are now protected by NM law.
Thank you to everyone who contacted their legislators and the governor to help make this happen. We’ve come a long way since 1923 when the Game Commission and Department were first created. Here’s to another hundred years of vibrant wildlife populations in New Mexico.
Featured image: Almost all perching birds rely on insects for protein for at least part of their lives including this male Hepatic Tanager feeding his fledgling a beetle.
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