Outdoor recreation in New Mexico generates approximately $3.2 billion toward our economy each year, a testament to the beauty of our desert and mountain landscapes, not to mention the stewardship afforded by management agencies, elected officials, and most important, our outdoor enthusiasts whose appreciation of our state’s natural bounty is heartfelt and bone-deep.
In the 2025 legislative session, a coalition of anglers, hunters, and other wildlife advocates will be working to pass legislation to ensure our wildlife management is built for the 21st century and is protected for future generations.
The effort has three goals: update the mission of the NM Department of Game and Fish (NMDGF) to account for non-game species, depoliticize and strengthen the State Game Commission, and generate funding to sustain hunting and fishing traditions and improve wildlife conditions.
Historically, NMDGF has focused on hunting and fishing, but this does not reflect the growing popularity of enjoying wildlife through binoculars and cameras. Like hunters and anglers, non-consumptive wildlife enthusiasts stay at hotels and eat at restaurants. Wildlife in New Mexico is interconnected; when we conserve critical habitat for non-game species like birds and beavers, it has a positive ripple effect that keeps our entire ecosystem healthy.
The NMDGF is overseen by the State Game Commission, an independent governing body charged with making wildlife management decisions affecting all New Mexicans. Game commissioners are appointed by the governor, regardless of experience or expertise in wildlife, and they can be removed from the Game Commission at the whim of the governor as well. That must change, and the Commission should be reformed to ensure legislative and public input, and they must be informed by voices from the agricultural, hunting and fishing, science, and wildlife advocacy communities.
To make any reforms meaningful, we must modernize the current funding mechanisms to enable comprehensive management, benefiting not just game species but the broad array of other species comprising the ecosystems that help fish and game flourish. NMDGF receives no money from the legislature, relying instead on revenue generated by the sale of fishing and hunting licenses. License fees haven’t increased in 20 years, while the costs of managing wildlife have gone up a lot.
In order to ensure the Department has the resources it needs to manage wildlife in our state, we must raise license fees. Hunters and anglers support a license fee increase because they know it’s necessary to ensure healthy populations of game, fish, and other wildlife. The coalition has worked hard to ensure increases are minimal for New Mexico residents; the average increase is about $15 a year for residents, and there will be no change for more than 10 types of resident licenses. Discounts will remain for veterans, seniors, youth, and people with disabilities.
The region around Questa possesses unparalleled hunting and fishing richness. The Rio Grande gorge, Valle Vidal, Eagle Nest Lake, and the Latir Peaks Wilderness generate a disproportionate share of license fee revenue. Imagine how much more could be brought in with just a small increase, and how much better hunting and fishing could be as a result.
NMDGF also needs a source of non-fee revenue to supplement license fee revenue. We need to ensure that costs for the conservation of non-game species doesn’t fall entirely on the backs of hunters and anglers. This is fair but also common sense; if, as described earlier, license fee revenue is currently insufficient for the task of managing game species, spreading it even thinner to manage non-game species will ensure that all of our wildlife get the short end of the stick.
We can’t allow this to happen. The effort to reform wildlife management in the 2025 legislature deserves our support.
