El Paso Hueco Tanks area Aoudad

BBob

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Anybody actively hunt or know much about the Aoudad situation around El Paso? More specifically the Hueco Tanks area? They’re getting pretty overrun out there (ravaging the park) and I’m puzzled as to why they haven’t been hit harder. I know the park can’t be hunted but what’s the situation outside the park?
 
To answer my own question: Typical for TX, It’s near 100% private or res land so it can’t be freely hunted without permission from dozens of small land owners.
 
OnX shows that the park property might extend around the back side of a chunk of private into a couple decent draws and canyons. Not sure why they don’t have a hunt like many other state parks if the aoudad are that overrun. But then you’d still have a 1% draw chance like most other exotic draws in the state.IMG_6420.jpeg
 
There is no way to kill them without trespassing. I looked into this over the 5 years I lived in Las Cruces, but couldn't figure it out.

You can buy an OTC tag for New Mexico, but I don't think you can get close enough to that area to make a dent.
 
Is there anywhere else in Texas one would recommend free range Aoudad on public ground? Is this really even possible?
 
Anybody actively hunt or know much about the Aoudad situation around El Paso? More specifically the Hueco Tanks area? They’re getting pretty overrun out there (ravaging the park) and I’m puzzled as to why they haven’t been hit harder. I know the park can’t be hunted but what’s the situation outside the park?
It would be great if one of the hunting/conservation organizations would pursue opportunities like this. We were there in February and the rangers said they're a huge problem.

I don't know why Texas parks couldn't create some type of hunt for this, even it was just archery and seasons limited to avoid conflict with the rock climbers that frequent the park.

If there is an organization that pursues things like this, someone post it up.

We have an area in MS that is National Forest, they built a lake and closed hunting around the lake and never reopened it. Another lake thirty minutes away has archery hunts every year without issue. It's reducing the amount of public land we can hunt and we own it.
 
I don't know why Texas parks couldn't create some type of hunt for this, even it was just archery and seasons limited to avoid conflict with the rock climbers that frequent the park.
I don't know why either. Rock season is roughly October through March so there's plenty of time to avoid the climbing crowd. .gov hunters could also just come in during the summer and they'd be gone with no one the wiser.
 
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