Now that my big game hunting is over for the 2007-2008 season, it’s time to concentrate on the upcoming season and the changes that have been instituted by the state Game and Fish Department. Because of the economic recession we are currently in, the increase in the nonrefundable application fee is something to consider.
The fee has been increased to $9. It wasn’t too long ago that licenses were over the counter and much lower in price. Now you pay just for the chance to get a license. There are no guarantees that you will.
This is just something as a hunter you have to learn to live with. The numbers of hunters who want to hunt elk in New Mexico, for example, is over 60,000 judging by the numbers of hunters who applied for licenses in the 2007-2008 drawing. If all those hunters were given licenses, the forests of New Mexico would have three times as many hunters as they do now. The most recent success rate (2007-2008) for elk hunters in New Mexico was 33 percent statewide. That includes all hunts,
At that rate, it wouldn’t take long to shoot out most of the elk in New Mexico if everyone was given a license that wanted one.
It also costs more to manage the numbers of hunters and the game in New Mexico. I don’t mind paying a little more to make sure that there’s game to hunt for myself and future generations.
Another change of particular interest to myself is the change in the boundaries of Units 51, 52 and 5B.I have hunted in all these Units and am familiar with them.
One of the complaints coming from hunters was that there were not enough elk in Unit 51 and 5B on public land and that success was low. On the other side of the coin, ranchers were reporting that there were too many elk in these Units and they were suffering unacceptable losses to elk.
One thing the ranchers kept emphasizing during a meeting with Department officials I attended in June was there was too much road hunting and hunters were driving by lots of elk. Judging by my experience during the past season hunting in Unit 51, they may have a point.
I like to get out and walk the timber when I’m elk hunting. During the past season, I often saw elk but what I didn’t see were other hunters. Oh sure, there were plenty of hunters cruising the roads on four-wheeled ATVs and pickups, but I did not see any hunters out walking like I was.
I didn’t harvest an elk, but I did get a good shot at one and I’d practically guarantee that the elk would have been harvested if just a couple of other hunters had been walking nearby — but there weren’t any.
One thing that today’s hunters need to realize is that yesterdays’s hunters didn’t have the opportunities that we do now. When I spoke with old-timers in Lindrith earlier this year, they all said that deer were scarce and there were no elk at all when they were children and young men. One of the reasons we have elk and deer hunting today was the willingness of past hunters to pay for the opportunity to hunt and to accept restrictions on when and where they could hunt and how many animals could be harvested.
In many cases, the good old days of hunting are right now. We have the opportunity to hunt elk, deer, oryx, bighorn sheep, ibex and pronghorn antelope. This was not the case 50 or 60 years ago. Opportunities to hunt were much more limited and some of these species and sometimes were not available to hunters at all. It’s been the money that past hunters were willing to spend and the laws that they supported that have given us the opportunities we have today. The hunting opportunities of future generations will depend on the willingness of today’s hunters to do the same.