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SANTA FE —(AP)— The New Mexico state Game Commission will work with Gov. Bill Richardson's administration to change state law to prohibit ranchers from immediately killing elk damaging their property. The proposal would require ranchers to absorb at least a year’s worth of damage before being allowed relief, and also imposes other impediments to corrective action. Richardson, a Democrat, was a former Clinton administration cabinet member. He replaced the entire seven-member commission with his own appointees after taking office as governor. The commission voted last week to draft a bill that would make it more difficult for landowners to qualify for ``kill permits.'' The proposed changes to the Jennings law, named for its sponsor, Sen. Tim Jennings, D-Roswell, will be presented during the next regular legislative session in January. The Jennings law allows ranchers to kill elk or other game animals that pose an ``immediate threat'' to property. Commission member Guy Riordan said it's time that law changed. ``I have a problem with anybody being able to go ahead and start knocking down elk or deer...,'' he said. ``We need to be much more restrictive in what the landowner is able to do.'' In May, a Rio Arriba County ranch manager who had a permit gunned down 19 elk for eating hay, a legal action under a 2000 state statute. The proposed change would require the rancher to seek help from the state Game and Fish Department in stopping the crop or other damage. They would also first have to prove that crop losses were greater than the money made off the sale of private-land hunting permits and wait a year. ``You can lose a whole hay crop in a year,'' said Caren Cowan, executive director of the New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association. Cowan said her fear would be that farmers and ranchers would have to choose between pursuing agriculture or raising wildlife. The commission also voted to end a predator control program. The Game and Fish Department had halted the program, which cost the state $292,000 over the last four years, because of what it deemed poor results. The previous Game Commission, appointed by former Gov. Gary Johnson, had directed the department to reduce the number of coyotes in several areas in the hopes of boosting mule deer populations. Trappers killed 1334 coyotes, but there was ``no appreciable change in the number of deer or in fawn survival,'' Luis Rios, the department's chief of wildlife, told the commission. The commission voted to end the program, but did not eliminate predator control as an option for game managers when it is needed. The commission asked the department to come up with a new plan to help deer that addresses predators and other factors, and to craft the plan in a way that the results could be better measured. |
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