New Mexico Pronghorn numbers down

[Gila]

Recent fawn recruitment data shows a rather concerning decline in the herds. The North East counties in particular. There may be fewer private land tags sold over the counter as well as public draw tags. Which counties that are affected and how many tags will be allocated should be finalized (I hope) at the upcoming Game commission meeting on Jan 10. Minutes of the meeting will be available to the public.

Actually the fawn recruitment - doe survival data is from 2019-2023 however the number of reduced tags will affect the fall season.

 

[Gila]

I have yet to see the minutes of the commission meeting on the 10th. However the results came out in the long awaited Hunting rules and info booklet just minutes after the meeting was adjourned. The results are clear, they put a cap on the quota of over-the-counter private land authorizations what-ever that number is I plan to find out. As I had previously surmised, they reduced the number of tags in the public draw so that residents and non-residents alike will have less opportunity to hunt on public lands. I do not know why the numbers of Pronghorn are reduced in those counties but I intend to find out. Once again the outfitters win and the public DIY hunter loses.

 

[Gila]

The Jan 10 Game commission meeting is on Youtube. The number of private land and public land doe tags has been reduced by 20%. But what they didn’t say was that Mature buck tags were also reduced by 20% for the public draw. Public draw MATURE BUCK tags in those affected counties are reduced by 20% across the board! They had no data to differentiate the population decline on public lands vs private land. The data showed about 75% of the tags in those affected NE counties are private land tags. They could have capped the over the counter female private land tags by about 75% and left the number of public draw mature buck tags alone to achieve the same objective! They attributed the main cause of the Northeast population decline to drought.

 

[WRO]

The Jan 10 Game commission meeting is on Youtube. The number of private land and public land doe tags has been reduced by 20%. But what they didn’t say was that Mature buck tags were also reduced by 20% for the public draw. Public draw MATURE BUCK tags in those affected counties are reduced by 20% across the board! They had no data to differentiate the population decline on public lands vs private land. The data showed about 75% of the tags in those affected NE counties are private land tags. They could have capped the over the counter female private land tags by about 75% and left the number of public draw mature buck tags alone to achieve the same objective! They attributed the main cause of the Northeast population decline to drought.

Horse shit, there’s a die off. We have had plenty of feed and water on the place we hunt and our numbers are down 75% easy. We never had trespassers and now they’re a constant problem.

What’s their plan to cap private land tags? It’s so bad we’re not planning on returning for until it gets better and I have been hunting the same 30K acres for 7 or 8 years now. The amount of pressure on the adjacent properties has tripled.

The A plus system needs to come back.

 

[Gila]

I am going to talk to BCHA and some other folks but the preliminary summary data I have seen indicates that those NE units may be over hunted and over grazed. However I plan on ferreting out the details. I am not so satisfied with the data the biolologist presented at the meeting. The resident outfitters and out of state brokers are buying up as many OTC private land authorizations they can get their hands on. Most of those authorizations are then re-sold. This coming season’s cap on OTC private land authorizations is at 80% for does only? but I need to verify this. For the public draw there is a reduction of 20% across the board for those same units including buck tags. I don’t agree with hunting Pronghorn during the peak of the rut.

When conditions get rough Pronghorn will move their feet and could end up hundreds of miles away from where they were. Pronghorn can’t jump fences and have a tough time with the tight, range border fences. However with just a normal fence they know where the “holes” are under or through the bottom barb wire strand to get through. IMO the state needs to do away with private land authorizations and private land tags entirely across the board. Those tags belong in the public draw IMO. The state should lease the private land for public hunting access. I know of at least one state that has done this and it is a huge success for hunters and Pronghorn.

The state should give ranchers an incentive to modify border fences that are Pronghorn friendly. Also NM should get rid of the outfitters pool of 10% of the public draw. I think what may be workable is going with 90% res 10% non-res for the public draw like Wyoming did. We don’t have preference points and I think we should keep it random. New Mexico needs to get out of the outfitter business. Wildlife belongs to the public - Residents and non-Residents. It is our tax money that goes into managing the resource.

 

[WRO]

I am going to talk to BCHA and some other folks but the preliminary summary data I have seen indicates that those NE units may be over hunted and over grazed.

I have hunted it the last 7 or 8 years, the grazing is relatively unchanged, the pressure is through the roof, but there had to be a die off, there’s almost no fawns, the trend started in 2021 and it was dismal this year.

The doe count is literally 1/3 of 4 years ago.

 

[TurkeyReaper69]

Thank you @Gila for posting this and keeping up with it.

I can't say I'm shocked that NM screwed over the public hunter again. You mentioned reaching out to BHA, I'd also recommend reaching out to the NM Wildlife Federation, they have been doing some excellent data dives into private land allocations in NM.

I drew a tag in northeastern NM for the 3rd rifle season this past season as a non-resident. After putting in several hundred miles over a couple scouting days the writing was on the wall. I had only found 3 legal bucks the entire time. One that was nowhere near public ground, And two others that both clinged to public/private boundaries. I ended up harvesting an antelope, but it almost made me feel bad taking that goat. That trip was only my 2nd antelope hunt, but I knew something was seriously off in the unit. Hell I hardly even saw many does, I'd say maybe 15-20 of them. It was grim to say the least.

After I filled my tag I ended up doing some dove hunting on a piece of public I'd seen them using, and just happened to come across the other lucky non-resident ago pulled the other nonrez tag, he had arrived 5 days before the tag started and to say the least he was absolutely demoralized due to the lack of antelope. He said he'd been applying for that unit for a (I think he said 17 years) long time after his hunting partner drew the tag and they had a hell of a hunt together.

Needless to say I was incredibly disappointed with how things shaked out, of course I am grateful to have brought home a goat in the cooler, but I'd be lying if I wasn't disappointed on that 13 hour drive home due to the lack of encounters I'd had on the trip.

 

[PKR]

I got in on a private land hunt in the NE area. The guys I went with had been there multiple years in a row. Before heading out they were very confident in success but by the end of the hunt were concerned in the population decline.
One water hole they said the previous year was loaded and you could “take your pick”. This last season almost nothing.
Another example was a hunting podcast I listen to based out of west TX. He too went on a NM hunt and had somethings to say about the numbers vs the amount of tags being given out.

 

[Gila]

Some of the man made natural flow tanks will dry up periodically. Cattle will drain a tank then move on to another area. When it rains the tanks fill up again. Depends on how many cattle are using the area. Many ranchers went to solar wells where feasible. Some parts of New Mexico have had above average rainfall and snow for the last three years. I don’t know about the NE. Natural prairie grasses have evolved to resist drought. Too many cattle in an area can over-graze during a drought. However, pronghorn are the only prairie grazers that have evolved to eat sage. Mule deer do okay with sage. The little speed goats are short lived. When habitat conditions are favorable, there will be a higher survival rate of twins and the herd populations can recover quickly.

Handing out land owner tags is a known, failed concept. Those tags belong in the public draw. There is another way for landowner's to make money off of the pronghorn and deer that visit their land though. The landowners could sign a contract with the state to open their lands to public hunting. The ranchers could receive $5-10$ per acre per year for public hunting access only during the Pronghorn and Mule Deer seasons. That way the ranchers will have a steady annual income regardless. They actually could make more money in the long run. Putting some acres in CRP doesn’t really pay very much but open up that CRP to public hunting could be a money maker. It is a win for the hunter and the Pronghorn, Mule deer.

 

[WRO]

Some of the man made natural flow tanks will dry up periodically. Cattle will drain a tank then move on to another area. When it rains the tanks fill up again. Depends on how many cattle are using the area. Many ranchers went to solar wells where feasible. Some parts of New Mexico have had above average rainfall and snow for the last three years. I don’t know about the NE. Natural prairie grasses have evolved to resist drought. Too many cattle in an area can over-graze during a drought. However, pronghorn are the only prairie grazers that have evolved to eat sage. Mule deer do okay with sage. The little speed goats are short lived. When habitat conditions are favorable, there will be a higher survival rate of twins and the herd populations can recover quickly.

Handing out land owner tags is a known, failed concept. Those tags belong in the public draw. There is another way for landowner's to make money off of the pronghorn and deer that visit their land though. The landowners could sign a contract with the state to open their lands to public hunting. The ranchers could receive $5-10$ per acre per year for public hunting access only during the Pronghorn and Mule Deer seasons. That way the ranchers will have a steady annual income regardless. They actually could make more money in the long run. Putting some acres in CRP doesn’t really pay very much but open up that CRP to public hunting could be a money maker. It is a win for the hunter and the Pronghorn, Mule deer.

I’ll say it a little louder for the people in the back, there’s been a die off.

It’s not the habitat.

Nm doesn’t have the 150-300k you mention ( your numbers, not realistic ) for just the ranch I hunt.


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[Gila]

I didn’t just think this up. I am not that smart in conservation. Another Pronghorn state did this and has been successful….very successful. The state I am talking about pumps millions into their best pronghorn areas. I hunted one of the ranches before it was public hunting. That tract was 35,000 acres. The state raised the hunting license fees by $5 with half the population of New Mexico. I would rather pay a slight increase in license fees to be able to hunt without paying $2-3K for trespass fees in an area that has poor hunting. There is no evidence of disease or toxins so I can only guess that the “die off” may be caused by well placed bullets?

 

[Superx3]

The great thing about our great nation is you have every chance to own private land as every other person. It’s private property. Do you want to be told that you can’t use your pool in your back yard, but here have $.50 and everyone that wants to swim and draws a permit that you have no say over can have access to YOUR pool? Quit bitching about not having access to private. I agree they should add or cut tags to help control populations, but cut or add them evenly. Cut or add tags for everyone a certain percent across the board. Life is not fair and Mother Nature is cruel.

 

[Stubborn_bowhunter]

The great thing about our great nation is you have every chance to own private land as every other person. It’s private property. Do you want to be told that you can’t use your pool in your back yard, but here have $.50 and everyone that wants to swim and draws a permit that you have no say over can have access to YOUR pool? Quit bitching about not having access to private. I agree they should add or cut tags to help control populations, but cut or add them evenly. Cut or add tags for everyone a certain percent across the board. Life is not fair and Mother Nature is cruel.

Reminds me of the ruling that the waterways aren't private and people needed to cut the razor wire down blocking access on the Pecos River.
Those "pools" were deemed public.

State owned animals shouldn't be freely harvested on private land. It's a broken system.

 

[elkhunter505]

I for one think the A-Plus system was garbage because as a public hunter you were not allowed to hunt public land during the rifle hunt. That was a huge detriment to the system; however, the new system that was put in place with OTC private land tags is also a horrible idea. Wildlife is a public resource and that basically takes a ton of tags and makes them to the highest bidder. At least with E Plus the LO has to have habitat that is high quality or high importance before they receive the tag. The other thing that is concerning to me is the disease element in pronghorn. Wyoming had a couple die offs due to pneumonia caused by Mycoplasma bovis which is related to the pathogen that causes pneumonia in bighorn sheep. Yes drought can have something to do with it, but I wholeheartedly believe that pathogen/disease sampling is a facet of wildlife management that is forgotten/bypassed a lot of the time. Would be interesting to test for exposure serologically.

 

[WRO]

I liked the a plus from a management standpoint, it kept harvest numbers managed on both public and private.. I think we had 6 tags total on the ranch I hunt which is 30k acres. 1 public, 5 private. Now the neighbor with 5k acres sells 8 as an example..


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[Gila]

Looking for disease is important. The problem is generally the cattle. The feeders bought at auction can cause disease problems. E-Plus gives us too much hunting pressure during some hunts usually the first rifle season when most hunters want to hunt. The success rates on those hunts have taken a nosedive. Trophy quality units? Not with E-Plus. But just how many National Forest bulls are harvested with land owner tags? So many questions yet so few answers. You paid for a High Demand (limited entry) elk hunt that you won in the public draw and now you have twice as many hunters show up that weren’t in the public draw….most are non-residents with E-Plus tags that they paid $9,000 for. If the resource is to be managed properly, all tags should be in the public draw.

 

[elkhunter505]

Agreed. I’m now a Montana resident and have seen the draw system here and it astonishes me that NM went that direction. Montana has more land and a similar proportion of private land to NM and every tag is through the draw system for nonresidents unless I’m misunderstanding something. There are big issues with large tracks of private being bought and turned into hobby ranches for rich out of state hunters, but at the very least they can’t just sell those tags to the highest bidder.

 

[PKR]

My observation was I went on a hunt and the numbers were down from previous years the people I was with had seen. Vegetation was also dry in the area this season and it was not a heavily ranched area from what I could tell.
Until recent I never really knew of private land tags in NM and I can agree where the concept is controversial to be able to sell a tag for a wild animal.
I’m by no means a “highest bidder” and have put in for years on tags in NM with no luck other than a Mule archery that was in an area high populated with oil and gas activity.
Coming from TX with next to no public land I’ve put in work on what little there is for years as well. Closest thing to me is 3 hours away, brutally tough to hike around on and get away from folks. I’ve whooped my own ass more than a couple times trying to hunt it.
I took what I could get/afford. My son and I had a great time and made memories

 

[Gila]

Last year was unusually wet in most areas of New Mexico, I don’t know about the NE. The following newspaper article explains the issues but I will say that the Pronghorn hunting will crash in Wyoming just like it has in New Mexico. If the bill Senate File 118 passes in Wyoming, kiss your pronghorn hunting good bye!

https://county17.com/2025/01/23/sho...sale-a-bill-proposes-big-bucks-for-big-bucks/

 

[elkhunter505]

Yep and it’s going to get harder with the current administration. We’re going to be fighting the rest of our lives to keep this stuff public. I honestly think the BMA program that Montana has in place should be the status quo. It seems like there are many people that appreciate it and many landowners seem to use it. I really need to delve into the cost per acre/per hunter and wrap my thoughts around it. I think that many of these ranchers are wanting the income not necessarily the hunting, so in that sense, if we can find a program that can match those dollars that includes public access, that should be the way.