Small landowners in southwestern Rio Arriba County won a partial victory last week at the state Game and Fish Commission meeting.
The Commission unanimously passed a motion Sept. 24 by Commissioner Alfredo Montoya changing the boundary between big game Units 6A and 6C. The new boundary between the units will be the boundary line between the Coyote Ranger District and the Cuba Ranger District.
The boundary change will expand the size of Unit 6C about 42,369 acres westward to include most of the east side of the Jemez Mountains and will add a significant portion of the San Pedro Parks Wilderness Area to Unit 6C from Unit 6A. The previous boundary had been Forest Road 103 east of Gallina.
“It’s as close as we could come to a win-win situation,” Montoya, who also serves on the Rio Arriba County Commission, stated in an e-mail to the SUN. “The stakeholders in 6A were strongly opposed to combining the units until hunting improves in Unit 6C. The concerned residents of Unit 6C have indicated that they are satisfied with this action, and I am happy I could be of assistance.”
Outfitter Art Martinez, who represented 30 to 40 small landowners in Unit 6C, feels that the boundary move will benefit them.
“My feeling was the change was made to make their permits more valuable,” Martinez said. “That’s what we wanted.”
Initially, small landowners in Unit 6C lobbied for Units 6A and 6C to be combined with Unit 6, which had been the case prior to 2001. At that time, Units 6A and 6C were created out of Unit 6, which encompassed the entire Jemez Mountains range.
Since the units were split, Unit 6C has been managed for high elk harvest to decrease the herd, while 6A has been managed to increase the elk herd and trophy quality. Due to the separate management practices, elk hunting in Unit 6C has declined and landowners in 6C who were granted landowner hunting permits saw those permits decline in value. Landowner permits in 6A, however, have seen their permits be valued at $2,500 because of the quality of hunting.
The landowners in 6C were complaining that their permits were not worth enough to compensate them for damage done by elk, which would move into 6C from 6A and the Valles Caldera (Unit 6B) to feed on their irrigated lands in the spring. The boundary change should help make their permits more valuable.
“We were feeding a lot of elk and not getting any of the benefits,” Chris Lovato, a small landowner in Unit 6C, said. “(The boundary change) is going to help 6C landowners who get permits to offer more of a quality hunt.”
Garth Simms represented the New Mexico Council of Outfitters and Guides, which was opposed to the combining of Units 6A and 6C. He was not satisfied with the motion to change the boundary.
“All in all we’re not enthused about the boundary line,” Simms said. “We didn’t have a chance to look at it. It was just done.”
One of the problems that could be created by the boundary change is that the new boundary is not marked and hunters and outfitters could unknowingly end up hunting in the wrong unit, especially in areas such as the San Pedro Parks, where the new boundary cuts through diagonally, Simms said.
“There is no visible boundary between those two Units,” Simms said. “It could cause a good amount of problems. Hunters could be issued citations for hunting in the wrong unit and lose their hunting privileges. Outfitters could lose their license for violations like that.”
The boundary change is set to go into effect for the 2010-11 hunting season and would also affect deer hunting.
Darrel Weybright, Big Game Programs manager for the Department, said the reason the Department was opposed to the boundary change was that when the units were split concerned parties in Unit 6A had voluntarily chosen to have fewer permits in order to improve the quality of their elk hunting, whereas parties in 6C had wanted the elk herd reduced. Now. they wanted the hunting improved in 6C.
“We’re working to improve the hunting in 6C by reducing licenses and would have preferred that they hang tight in 6C and we could get them there,” Weybright said.
“Landowner permits in 6C will be worth more,” he said “Because the land added to 6C from 6A is predominantly public land, there will be fewer landowner permits in 6C because the percentage of public land would be higher.”
The total number of licenses available in each unit is determined by the Department based on the size of the elk herd and then divided according to the percentage of private land versus public land.