EP 240: Possible Elimination of Nonresident Sheep Hunting in New Mexico

What they're basically proposing is to eliminate all non-resin spill that put in Fort Desert or Rocky Mountain Baycorn Sheep. If you think that it can't happen, it can't be changed, it won't be changed, whatever you think, throw that out the window. They'll do whatever they want. Anything to do with Western Big Game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter, Adam Bronson, Josh. Josh Pollock's here with us as well, Chris. How you guys doing? Good, good. Good. June 1. Holy cow. What's that? Summer's here. Draw results are coming out. June 1. Like crazy. They're not coming out fast enough or good enough for me. Yeah, you didn't get a moose tag in Montana. I know you're disgusted about that. I'm kind of relieved. Colorado. I'm relieved. We had some members draw. It's been awesome. Anyway, there's a lot going on. We're kind of excited. Of course, we got some more draws. We just got done applying for Wyoming, deer and antelope. And then, of course, today. Today's the deadline for Montana antelope. Huh? Did you apply? I had some calls just before we got in here. I thought you were going to announce that you applied there. Well, may or may not.

I'm not going to tell you. Hey, those were some pretty cool pictures, though. Those Montana antelope pictures we got in last year. There must have been like an early snowstorm or something. And now those people were crushing all those bucks in snow. You just don't see those kind of pictures very often. They're kind of cool. No. If there's snow, I don't want to be hunting mule deer. But anyway, yeah, so kind of an exciting time of year. We've also got some crazy stuff going on we've been talking about here in the office. Of course, the world's kind of talking about it a little bit. You see it out there on talk forums and whatnot. And that's the crushing of nonresidents and redistributing or looking at the distribution of tags and the nonresident allocations. And we want to be, we've said it before, we've done a podcast or two or portions about this in the recent weeks.

We're nonresidents everywhere except for one state. We live in the West, so fortunately, I guess for us, we have a resident state here. Many people that listen to this or hunt the West are not a resident of any Western state. And before anybody wants to call us crybabies or whatever that we want to fully say, understand that, hey, you know, residents deserve the lion's share of the tags. Whether that's 10%, 20%, that's kind of where most states fall in line of. We don't have any problem with that. Even though there's a lot of federal land in every state, and it has been contested years ago, you know, that because there's a lot of the lion's share of property in a lot of these states in the West, you know, different than the East. The East is generally all private. But here in the West, we've got a lot of federal land. That's right. And so it was contested that, hey, maybe we're all equal.

Maybe we're just all equal. And that wasn't upheld. You know, that was in Arizona. But so we're not complaining about that. But when you make big changes, there's also another changes that are going to have to be made, too, maybe to a draw system. You know, in the case of, say, maybe Wyoming, with what they've done with their big five, moose, sheep, goat, bison, I guess, grizzly, whatever, why they lumped that on. Well, because at some point, hopefully we're hunting. Yeah, you've got a 75%, 25% random preference. And now how is that point system going to work? Is there going to be even any random tags for some species? If you limit it, what you're saying is the overall, generally speaking, elk was 16%, 20-plus on deer and antelope and different things. And so you're saying, hey, if we're down to 20%, now we take that to 10% overall quota and then do our different.

And don't change the draw system. It's a broke system. Yeah, because you would take that 10%, then divide it by. 75, 25, and there's no 25. Or a 40-60 split on special and regular. Yeah. And then further divide that. Oh, yeah. You're going to have to change some things there. And, you know, to make it even, or your state's going to lose millions. And that's what their point is, is, well, maybe we won't change it, but we'll just increase the non-resident tag fee. Okay. Well, there's, and my contention is go ahead and do that. We'll see how good it works. You're going to have so few non-resident moose sheep and goat tags. You can charge, you know, $30,000 for one. You're still going to have a net loss of hundreds of thousands. Yeah. And that's, I think, why there's a few things up for discussion. Yeah. So the discussion, we're not fighting. Okay.

But there's certain things that we're going to stick up for. There's another one in New Mexico that we're going to really stick up for because it's elimination. And we're going to talk about that in a minute. We're eliminating an option for non-residents completely versus restricting them to 10% or 20% or wherever the state falls, which 10 to 20 is where most states, when you start to get below 10, we feel that's pretty stingy. You know, there's some states like Oregon and that we've really hammered in the past on. Well, it is. It is. It is up to one. Elk and antelope. You can have one non-resident enter your state for an elk. I mean, through the draw process, it's pretty sad. And some of it doesn't make sense. But you know what? Right now, life doesn't make sense. I mean, the whole world's ticked off and frustrated. And we see change everywhere. We're turning around.

It's getting, now it's infiltrating our own little industry, which we love and live for. Anxiety and anger and unrest and opinions. And with some of these legislatures and game commissions that are largely democratic in in some states, you're seeing them grab onto these, what we thought were crazy ideas in the past, and actually implement them or potentially implement them. And it looks like we're on the horizon of that right now. So anyway, yeah, Bronson, a lot of things are, you know, as we've been talking about, a lot of things have been, you know, are up for discussion. And of course, Wyoming doesn't want to lose the non-resident revenue. We're talking mid-70s percent of their entire budget's made up from non-resident dollars. They don't want to lose that. So they're saying, well, we'll just charge them more.

And at some point, the math may not work in your favor when you say increase it. It may not. And when you're under a preference point system, and it doesn't really help in the random draw, you have to look at things like, well, how do we make those points more valuable? Or how do we even keep the people from wanting to spend their money on application fees or point fees, you know, because that will add, that adds up tenfold more than just a permit fee for sheep and moose successful application. And they've had some task force, you know, meetings, of course, in Wyoming, namely. And so, and that's can be found on YouTube. You can watch it for yourself. Go do it. We encourage you to do it. You'll see. First hand. Yeah. Yeah. There's a few of those people we may reach out to, to get them on the podcast, to give them their first hand perspectives. There's some pretty direct questions.

Well, and I think part of one of those direct questions is the outfitters think they're, they're entitled to 40 to, they were talking 40 to 50% of the non-resident allocation. And let's say the. Of the 10%. Of the 10%. Of the 10%. If it goes to the deer, elk, and antelope, goes to 10%, they want half of that. Yeah. 40 to 50% would go to a non-resident draw. Yeah. Who are going to hire outfitters. On top of a wilderness law that they already have in their state. So how much. Which meaning, meaning non-residents can't hunt wildernesses without an outfitter. Wyatt is a non-resident self-guided do-it-yourself guy have. The sliver's pretty small. Or even, even a guy that's thinking he's, even a guy, geez, I don't, it's on, it's on vibrate. Look at that. Okay. So anyway. Time to get a new phone. Even. It's those iPhones, you know. We've been hearing about. Wyatt's warned you about that.

Well, you know Wyatt. Anyway, I've got some words for Wyatt. But hey, having said all that, there's a lot of things like that that don't make sense that never have made sense. And hey, if I want to, let's call it a DIY tag. I can still choose to hire an outfitter. Like I can draw a tag that's just a tag that's not, doesn't have any stipulations. You don't have to take your grandma. You don't have to take your whatever. You don't have to hire somebody. You don't have to stay out of the wilderness. Yeah. You don't have to take a relative. You don't have to cheat the system. Whatever. Just do what I want. Right? It's a tag. I get to choose how I want to hunt it. And that's going away. Or it's not. Yeah, Jason, you still have 5% you can work with. And you get to choose whether you want to spend any money in the state. And I know the residents can say, yeah, stay out.

Okay, well, there's an easy answer until at some point your budgets in your state are cut so dramatically that it's going to fall upon residents at some point because you've got the bulk of the tags. And there's all those kind of ramifications. But let's maybe read. And I'm not. And Bronson, we're not saying Utah's perfect. We live here. Oh, no. But we've stood up for non-residents in Utah. Well, we've pointed out things that if we were king in every state, we kind of went through that in a blitz fashion a week or two ago. Today, we're going to maybe dive into detail a little bit. We're going to get back maybe to the New Mexico issue now. We'll kind of tee that up a little bit about what's been proposed there. Maybe call a guest or two to talk about that. And there's a public comment period open upon it. And that is regarding bighorn sheep. And New Mexico, they're not joking around.

They're not screwing around for all intents and purposes. If you think that it can't happen, it can't be changed, it won't be changed, it doesn't make sense, there's no way they can afford to do it. Whatever you think, throw that out the window. They'll do whatever they want. And there's some, you know, I don't know, you want to call it secret combinations or whatever. But there are ways that they get around things. And they interpret. They interpret laws. They interpret legislation. They're directing the Game and Fish for certain things as far as what the Game and Fish Commission is. You know, there's voting. There's voting rules and laws being looked at even when they're not, when they don't have a full board. I mean, there's just, it's crazy amount of things that we're up against. And here we are as a non-resident. Do they want to hear from us? No, they don't want to hear from us.

But you know what? They should. We provide 70% of their revenue. So we're going to provide that avenue today here a little bit later. But what they're basically proposing in this New Mexico Wildlife Federation and citizen groups, we'll just label them all as groups of New Mexico. And it's infiltrated into the Game Commission is to eliminate all non-residents to be able to put in for desert or Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep. Currently, we're able to do that. New Mexico has a law in place where 84% of their tags are set aside for residents. 10% are set aside for residents or non-residents through an outfitter program. And 6% is set aside for non-residents in an unguided program. That math works out pretty easily in deer, elk, and antelope quotas where you have higher numbers of tags and things like that. In sheep, where you have one, two, three, four tags per hunt code, the rounding can't

work very good. So, you know, what would have been maybe six, eight years ago, Carter? I don't know how long it's been. The state lumped in the Desert and Rocky Mountain hunt codes. I believe it's 201 and 204, if I'm not mistaken, as a collective hunt code for all Rocky Mountain sheep tags and all desert sheep tags. And there's 20, 25, 20-some-odd Rocky, 20-some-odd desert. So that's a big enough number that you then filter that into the 84, 10, 6 split, and it shakes out to still only two or three participation. Yeah. It allows for two to three non-resident tags for Rocky and two to three for desert. Doing it that way. Because you can't do it by hunt code. You got 10 hunt codes for Rocky and desert. You can't split up, you know, two tags very easily that way. So what's being challenged by these citizen groups of New Mexico is that that's not literal, correct interpretation.

And, you know, even though the Attorney General office has weighed in and has validated the way New Mexico Game and Fish has chosen to interpret that and implement it, that's not the answer these groups have wanted. So they're taking public comment. And the commission now is in their hands to potentially vote in the coming weeks and months on directing the Game and Fish to, no, implement that. This is how we want you to interpret that. A major, you know, a major meeting with this discussion item in particular is this Friday. So anyway, so we're sitting at Wednesday and we're going to turn that, turn this podcast for this evening. And then obviously it's imperative if anybody cares about this subject, we're going to provide a way for you to drop an email. And whether you think you're ever going to draw a desert sheep tag in New Mexico in your

life, which I don't, I mean, I apply, but do I ever think I'll really draw? I don't plan on it. No, but you didn't think you'd get Oregon either. No, but, but I want the option. I want the option to dream for desert and Rocky. I want the option to apply and, and, and the Game and Fish and in New Mexico, Wild Sheep Foundation and other organizations, I mean, there's the revenue alone from application fees for non-residents for sheep is significant. All right. Yeah. You're not, you're not making a ton of money at $3,000 per tag on what? Five or six total tags, but you're not making that much money on five or six total non-resident tags when you sell them at 3,000 each, but the application fees or the license fees that you have to buy to even apply that that's significant. And so the state stands to lose a lot of money pumping into wildlife management, license

revenue and all that just by eliminating a skew. Let alone a wild sheep foundation who, who, you know, they generate a lot of revenue from generally speaking from non-residents and everybody gathers. And then we also, you know, some of that money filters down into projects and all kinds of things that go into sheep management that, you know, sheep management's not that cheap. I don't even know what they pay for themselves. It's the most, it's the most, you know what I mean? If you take all the tag revenues and maybe even license or tag application revenues for sheep tags, who knows if they even pay for themselves. They're so, so sensitive to die off and there's so few tags and there's, it's quite a finite resource that you need conservation groups. Well, if we, if no non-resident can go down into Mexico, do you think that we're going to have any funding from national? Oh yeah. Well.

Filtered down into New Mexico? Like we've talked about Pittman Robertson money is all, uh, match, uh, you know, uh, 10% excise tax on that. And then you also receive other federal dollars, matching dollars to be able to, you know, make that non-resident license fee stretch further. So yeah, these, you know, it sounds great. Hey, just, we want two or three more resident tags in each category. That sounds, that rolls off your tongue easily, you know, as a resident base, but there's real world ramifications that of your sheep program. And I'm sure the game and fish would have the exact number of, Hey, here's how many non-residents bought a license and applied for sheep last year. That should be a really easy number to get at some point. You know, we could probably dig that up, you know, through the state at some point, but

it's hundreds of thousands of dollars just by buying a hunting license and applying for sheep. You know, I agree. What's it like at 65 bucks plus, plus a stamp or two. If you buy those or add them on plus then your $13 application. But at some point, if you just give non-residents the finger, because you can, at some point, what happens when, when the rest of the world alienates you and gives you the finger? And it's just, yeah, it's unfortunate. Nobody wants to do that. And I don't think it's not too much. Bronson, we're talking about one and two potential non-resident tags in desert sheep. Somewhere years like three. You know, for Rockies, depending on the guide pool versus the regular pool. One to three total non-resident tags. Of the total 26. You know, I mean, it's not, not egregious. We're talking, it's, it falls around 10%.

Again, what you think's common sense and what the, and what maybe a, a, a greedy resident group thinks common sense are two different things, I promise you. Well, Bronson, let's get into this. Let's, let's call Brian Bartlett, the president of New Mexico Wild Sheep Foundation. Just kind of, he's been in the middle of this. Let him set the stage a little bit. And, uh, yeah, just kind of teach us something for a minute. So.

Hello, this is Brian. Brian, Jason Carter, Adam Bronson. How are you? I'm doing just fine, Jason. How are you? Well, we got you on the Epic Outdoors podcast. We're doing good. We're a little wound up for a minute. I don't think you're wound up though, are you? Oh no, not at all. Seems like you've got an important meeting you're prepping for and we're taking valuable time. And we just want to tell you how much we appreciate it. Well, thanks, Jason. We, uh, we appreciate your, your support and anyone's support on protecting wild sheep conservation and the rights of ethical hunters. Those are the two things that we are committed to doing. And, uh, this whole, we've been working on this since the late February when all of this issue concerning allocation of bighorn sheep tags, public draw tags in New Mexico when this whole subject came up.

So, well, as we talk about this, uh, you know, we just, I want to kind of just talk about, and of course we want to talk about the logistics of all of it and the history for a minute, but then also how does that relate to bighorn sheep management, uh, non-resident participation, whether it be from national, uh, wild sheep or, or just the interest of the value of having, uh, people other than just residents interested in the success of bighorn sheep herds down in New Mexico. So we want to keep that in the back of our minds. It's not just about greed and getting tags and killing them. Um, and, and although, you know, the goal is to be able to have a great hunting experience in your state. And so, yeah, do you want to give us maybe a little background on this and, and, uh, just teach us something on what's going on down there? All right.

Well, Jason, why don't I fill you in on the, on, on the conservation program in New Mexico first, because that will lead us into the discussion of why we, have, have, uh, differences of opinion on what needs to be done. But let in it, if you go back in history in 1978, there were only 700 bighorn, Rocky mountain, bighorn sheep, and only 80, eight zero desert bighorn sheep left in New Mexico. Wow. That's 1978. Uh, currently we have 1800 Rocky mountain bighorn sheep in the, mostly in the Northern mountains. And we have over 1200 desert bighorn sheep in seven, actually eight different desert mountain ranges in the Southern part of the state. So that's quite an accomplishment that the New Mexico game department is, has pulled off. And if you go back and see where the funding has come from, 97% of the funding that goes

into the bighorn sheep enhancement fund for the game department to use 97% of that over the last 30 years has come from non-resident hunters and donors. 97%. 97%. Is that from either the sale of raffle and auction permits or state application fees for sheep or both? No, it's, it's not both. The application fees go into the general administrative funds of the game department. Yeah. The, this money I'm talking about, which is over $7 million, uh, since 1990 has come from the auction tags, the enhancement auction tags normally sold in Reno at the sheep show and our annual Rocky mountain and desert bighorn raffles. Yeah. And that, that total amount of money since 1990 has added up to over $7 million. And then what the game department does is they leverage that at a three to one rate with Pittman Robertson federal funds. So you're talking about 28 to $30 million, which has gone into this fund.

And that is what the game department uses almost exclusively for their bighorn sheep management, conservation and all of the activities that go into that, including the red rock breeding facility where we actually have a large tract of land to breed, uh, desert bighorns, which are then relocated to all different locations in the state. Yeah. Well, those are pretty staggering numbers. And, and, and I know, you know, I'm just trying to play, you know, the resident might say, well, Hey, we're not trying to stop the auction and raffle tags from going to non-residents. So that money's going to stay, it's going to be unaffected. But what we're, you know, what's on the table now is, is, you know, that you've laid the stage there greatly for how much money, uh, non-residents have helped contribute to the state and how, you know, they have some vested interest in it.

You know, if you eliminate draw tags for, for non-residents, the, the, the reason to be interested in New Mexico sheep, it really starts to wane or drift or become almost non-existent. And I don't know the exact numbers. We, we teed it up prior to calling you that with a non-resident buying a hunting license at $65 and a stamp or so, and then a $13 application fee just to apply for sheep. I mean, that number, um, I don't have that number right now, but if we were to call Game and Fisher at some point request that, um, that would be a significant amount of money as well of people that are just trying to have a shot to draw. And we're not even talking about the 7 million and the three to one. Yeah. We're talking about application fees. And, and again, similarly, all those license and application fees leveraged with PR money

on top of that is in the hundreds of thousands or million dollars of a year as well. And you said that goes in general fund, but that still funds, whether it be sheep, deer, elk, whatever game management in the state in Mexico. So that's what we're in jeopardy of losing as well. And what's frustrating to us, Brian, is why is it even being addressed? It seems to have been working pretty well. It's not like we're taking out, taking the lion's share as a non-resident. We're not. We're getting two to three tags for Rocky and Desert a year as it is right now. And there's a guide draw, you know, which may or may, some people may or may not agree with on top of the fact that, you know, 6% go to anybody, any non-resident and they get to choose how to hunt. So anyway, but you've kind of teed up the history a little bit on the revenue side of things.

And of course, the populations and the success of the programs. How does that get us to where we're at today? Well, in February, the Wildlife Federation did a couple of postings on the New Mexico Wildlife Federation did a couple of postings on their website. Basically, at that point, they were demanding that the game department change the way that they were allocating bighorn sheep public draw tags. Because we have so few sheep, the game department has been bundling all of the desert bighorn sheep tags into one hunt code and all of the Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep tags into another hunt code.

And then applying the percentages to that 20, 25 tags. Yeah. But you can apply for individual units underneath kind of a sub, let's call it, you know, the sub choices. And then until we meet our quota, right? And so if I get the pay codes, I get the pay codes. You have one hunt code and then you have areas that you select. Yep. And because if they followed the way they do the buell deer tags and the elk tags, where we have a lot of animals, if they did that in individual hunt codes, then we would end up with no non-resident tags at all. The rounding would be all below half a tag. No unit would have a tag. And that's what the residents want to, they want to enforce it that same way per hunt code, per hunt unit area or whatever. Because it's not really hunt code because we have a hunt code now. But by hunt area, they want to, you know, pail and seals, two tags. Yeah.

Apply the formula there. Okay, both of them go to residents. They want to do that. Yeah. And we, number one, we do not believe that we should jeopardize bighorn sheep conservation at all. And there are those people that say, well, this is not going to jeopardize anything because people are going to go ahead and buy the auction tags and they're all still going to participate in the raffle. Yeah, one guy. Well, I am not sure about that. Right. I have already, we are in the middle of our raffle right now and I have already had three very large, what I call donors, people who buy a lot of raffle tickets, that have told me that until they find out how this whole issue comes out, they are not going to donate any more money to New Mexico wild sheep conservation, which is basically buying raffle tags. So, and I'm not talking about a few tickets.

I'm talking about a significant amount of money that they donate every year knowing that they're not going to draw a tag probably, but they're willing to put a tremendous amount of money up front. To try to win the raffle. Well, a lot of these big players have killed desert sheep or a rocky. Like, they're doing it, they do do it in support of the program and of course they like to put their hands on something big. And it's, it's special and it's, and if you have the means, by all means, do what you want with it and go have an incredible hunt. But these are discretionary funds. It's like they, they don't, they choose to support something else. They'll go to Oregon. Different state. I don't know. You know what I mean? Or Colorado or Montana or well, I mean, it's not like they have to go to New Mexico, you know? That's right.

Well, if you think about it, the beauty of New Mexico is, is that all of their money goes into bighorn sheep conservation 100%. And they can look at where their money, what their money has done over the years going from 80 desert bighorns to 1200 desert bighorns. It's folks who buy the auction tags and buy the raffle tickets. They can see where their money goes. It'd be nice if we saw where our, our tax money went in the U S government, but they can actually see the fruits of their investment in wild sheep in New Mexico. And we should not, in my opinion, in our opinion, we should not compromise and throw these folks under the bus saying now that no, no non-residents have a chance at all. Well, and I think, I think it's important to point out, it's not like, it's not like the non-resident is getting, has an unfair proportion of tags in the industry for an industry standard.

You know, it's not, it's not like, you know, half the sheep tags are going to non-residents or something, you know, to, to me, we're talking, we're talking about eliminating the non-resident, the regular non-resident. We're talking about eliminating. Yeah. We're getting 10 to 15% right now. If you look at rounding, you know, per year and we're looking at bringing that to zero, 10 to 15 doesn't seem egregious. I mean, I, we can go back 10 plus years ago before we did the, the, the pooling before they had quotas. And we all know that their non-residents were getting way more than, than the majority of the tags there. And that was fixed. And it was addressed. It was addressed. Adjusted. And fixed. And everybody's continuing to support New Mexico. Yep. And now to me, to go to the other level, I mean,

I think it's very short sighted and I know I'm putting you on the spot cause you probably don't have the number either, but what, what is your thoughts, Brian, of, let's say you eliminate non-residents been able to apply for sheep application fees and by the hunting license in the state. And I know a lot of people might say, well, if you eliminate the sheep, they're still going to do deer and elk. Well, I can tell you as somebody that is in the hunting industry and an application service business, there's a lot of people that just apply for sheep in New Mexico, sheep only. And, and some people that might be triggered by eliminating sheep might say, well, you know, to heck with New Mexico. I'm not going to put in for the deer and elk now either because, you know, I'm not going to give them my money. The ramifications money-wise could be. And New Mexico's told me they don't want me. Yeah.

They don't want me down there. It's the same principle as the raffle, these big, you know, the whales that are playing the raffle or whatever. Some of these guys are really spending real money. So we're talking about a big impact potentially to the state eliminating license sale to that individual and an application fee for sheep and other species. If they just say, I'm done with you, they don't have a point system anyway. If I sit out, I'm not hurting myself at all because I'm not falling behind in a points game. I'll just say I'll spend my money elsewhere. Or maybe they'll wait for an extreme wet year or something like that and apply here and there, but not be as loyal, you know, not be a regular customer. I mean, we have some folks that have actually contributed to this program for over 10 years, 10 years in a row.

And typically they will call me and say, remind me when the raffle is due and we'll send you a check. And they just contribute the money. And what's interesting is we've run the raffle for 23 years and we've only ever had one big ticket buyer ever win the raffle. Wow. Last year, the person who won the Desert Bighorn tag bought one Desert Bighorn raffle ticket. Wow. The year before, the year before, the person who won the Rocky Mountain Bighorn sheep tag bought one Rocky Mountain Bighorn raffle ticket. Pretty awesome. That's pretty cool. It's not like this is a rich man's game. It's not a rich man's game, especially the raffle. But we need those guys. We need them to want to participate in the program and to donate. So, you know, go ahead.

And this whole thing blew up in February when the New Mexico Wildlife Federation sent out a couple of postings basically demanding that the way that the bighorn sheep tags should be allocated exactly like mule deer and Rocky Mountain Ale, which would have ended up with no non-resident public draw tags. Right now we have about 50 total tags. And when you apply the 84% resident, the 10% outfitter pool, and then the 6% street non-residents, you end up with approximately seven non-resident tags because normally the outfitter pool will actually – most of the folks who sign up with them are actually non-resident. So we end up with about seven tags, six or seven tags every year of non-residents. You're told – and this is total with the 6 and the 10. You've got, you know, one, you know, it looks like on the desert, you have one and two. Seven out of 50 is what you're saying.

That's about 14% roughly. Total of all species combined. It's six or seven out of 50. That's correct. That's right. And then what happens is that March 4th – prior to the March 4th meeting, game commission meeting, we got wind of this by accident actually. And we wrote a letter to the – New Mexico Wild Sheep Foundation wrote a letter to the game commission explaining why we thought this was a bad idea. We explained the history of the bighorn sheep conservation. We explained the situation concerning hunters. We don't – we believe that ethical hunters should be protected all over the United States and Canada, not only in New Mexico but everywhere. So we did not agree with what they were proposing. Then at that meeting, there was – we made public statements. The New Mexico Council of Outfitters and Guides made public statements.

The Wildlife Federation made kind of a very short statement virtually. And then there is one private citizen who is very vocal at all these meetings. And he basically stood up and said that all – at that first meeting, he recommended that all nonresidents be eliminated by this change. So the game commission then, because they saw this was an issue, wasn't a rollover issue in that we were not going to be somewhat bullied by the other folks, they decided to throw the whole issue over the fence to the attorney general and have them comment or give an opinion on this. On the validity of the – Of how the current implementation of the split has been doing, the two hunt codes. On the legality of the way the game department was allocating tags. Okay. So on one month later, on April 5th, the attorney general's office sent a letter to – actually, they copied the game commission.

They sent the letter to another legislator who actually must have also asked that this be done. But in that comment, it was a five-page opinion. And the bottom line of it is that the attorney general had determined that the way the game department was allocating tags was not only legal, but it was also logical. Fair and equitable. Yeah. And because of the small number of tags we have, it made more sense to do it this way than to allocate it. The way you do it. Yeah, it's a lot of time. Yeah. Yeah. So then they had a – on the 11th of April, the game commission had a meeting, and they were evidently discussing the number of public comments because that was public comments that they had gotten. And it turns out that there were much more – many more public comments that were in favor of supporting the game commission – the game department's proposal than were against it.

Well, that also was not the answer that the game commission wanted to hear. So they then called for a – at that meeting, they had a vote to extend the public comment period for another 60 days. And the vote on that was three to one, four. But at that time, the attorney general – member of the attorney general's office is always at the game commission meeting. She said that that vote did not pass because they needed to have a quorum. And the quorum would have been four yes votes because the typical or the actual game commission number is supposed to be seven, which we only have four now. At least the majority of them have to be in the room to have a quorum. So it did not pass. Well, that – there was then kind of a loud discussion. And the game commission then called for a special meeting on the 9th, which we attended also, of May.

And that meeting was called to hold a discussion on changing the way that they vote in the commission. The way they tally the votes, right? It was to adjust the way this works so they can push it through the way they need it to. Yes. Without having every seat filled. Without having to have a quorum. Before this even happened, New Mexico Wild Sheep Foundation stood up and made a very strong statement that we thought this was not right and that it was somewhat – somewhat seems to be unethical. And at least it doesn't look good. And of which one of the game commissioners got very incensed about this. Also, the guides and outfitters made a public statement basically saying the same thing. And then the usual crew of Wildlife Federation and this one private citizen stood up and put in their position. Anyway, that all worked out.

The game commission went ahead and voted to change the way they vote. And then they immediately passed with a 4-0 vote in favor of extending the public comment period for another 60 days over the normal 60 days. So June 3rd, this Friday, we're going to have a meeting to discuss this further. And what's very interesting is that at that May 9th meeting, the game commission also instructed the game department to hold a meeting amongst the players who have been involved so far – not all the players, because all the players haven't been involved – to come to some compromise. Well, so we went to this meeting, and there is nothing for us to compromise for. Why would the New Mexico Wildlife – Wild Sheep Foundation or the Outfitter and Guides folks, why would we agree to some temporary compromise when the way they're doing it now has been deemed to be legal and everything else?

There's Outfitter allocated tags. Residents can apply for it. There's 6% go to non-residents or up to 6% go to non-residents to get to choose how they want to hunt. What are you going to compromise? What are you going to give? There's one Rocky Mountain tag to a non-resident that can choose what he wants to do with it. What are you going to give up? Are you going to give up that tag? We had nothing to give up, and we would not budge. We made it very clear. If you look at the Wild Sheep Foundation, New Mexico Wild Sheep Foundation, and our Wild Sheep Foundation National, in our bylaws, in our mission and purpose, it's very clear that we are committed to wild sheep conservation all over. Anything that could compromise our ability to raise funds for wild sheep conservation or anything else that could compromise that, we have to be against.

We are also committed by our bylaws and our purpose and mission that we will protect the rights of ethical hunters, not only in the state of New Mexico, but all across the U.S. and Canada. So anything that compromises residents or non-resident hunters' ability to hunt is something we have to protect. And so we're going to be against that. And then we mentioned again that how can we throw all the folks who contributed to the recovery of Bighorn Sheep in New Mexico under the bus? And there was nothing to compromise. So we went away from that meeting. So that meeting results are going to be presented, I'm sure, this Friday also, which is not what the Dame Commission is going to want to hear. But that's where we stand right now. And that's what the public comment period is still open for a couple more days, right? Yes. And through Thursday night is what we're going to announce today.

If you want to make your comments, we'll let our listeners know here in a bit how to do that. Yeah. Anyway, basically just – Basically, this is a meeting to talk about it, but the vote, the actual vote comes up in August, right? In August, yes. Yeah. Well, I mean, they could – Who knows? Who knows? Who knows? They're making their own rules. The commission's been making their own rules as they go. Yeah, they could set another meeting, an important, you know, whatever, emergency meeting, you know. Next Monday. And maybe you find out about it by accident, which is intriguing. Like you said that meeting in March, you found out by accident. Does it feel like they're going to want to push their agenda and keep it as quiet as you can and just have as little input as possible? Well, we found out by accident. We knew there was a March meeting.

We didn't think there was going to be any issue at the game commission meeting. What we found out by accident was the campaign by the Wildlife Federation and some other folks to basically undermine the way the game department has done this in the past. I mean, our big goal across the United States should be not get more hunters without getting more sheep. If we want to do something for New Mexico hunters, we should be doing everything we can to increase the number of bighorn sheep, both deserts and Rockies, in our mountain ranges. If we increase the numbers of sheep, then – Bring on the hunters. Yeah, and if you – The residents are going to benefit the most.

Yeah, and if you limit the stakeholders in New Mexico for sheep, people interested in sheep, if you limit the stakeholders to just New Mexico residents and eliminate all the other 49 states and Canada and every other country that people want to apply for or have an interest in buying raffle tickets or applying for sheep, it's just obvious that your stakeholders go way down and your likelihood of maintaining status quo and revenue and momentum for programs and all that is going to stop. It's not going to increase. Yes, that is correct. We've got some email addresses. Of course, I guess the four commissioners, I don't know about the other three. Is that – those just empty seats? Are those the four that just voted for it? No, there are no other three. They stepped down or what? Let me explain this.

The governor appoints seven commissioners, which she did when she took office, of which no more than four can be of any one single political party. Okay. So these are Democrat or Republican down there on a game commission? No. What's happening is two of the commissioners resigned. One of them died, and she fired another one and then reappointed another one. There are no Republicans, as far as I know, on this commission.

Why is that even partisan? But I guess, yeah, anyway. So now we're sitting with four total commissioners making all the decisions. Right now, I see. The whole purpose of no more than four of any political party is so that, you know, you would have less politics involved in decisions. But the governor has not appointed any more commissioners. And what's very interesting to me is that, and I don't like talking politics, but this is very obvious. The northwestern part of the state is predominantly, well, there's a large number of conservative folks who live there. They are not represented. The commissioner who was appointed to their area is no longer there. But in the southeastern part of the state, which is Hobbs, Carlsbad, Artesia, you know, oil and cattle country, there's no commissioner assigned to that area either because that commissioner resigned.

And those folks have been not there for quite some time, and the governor has still not appointed anyone. And they would also most likely be very conservative. Yes. Oh, there's no doubt about it. Yeah. And so right now, you have four commissioners who basically are being, I don't want to say bullied or pushed or whatever, because I think they may be in total agreement with what these other folks are trying to do. But there's not much representation from the conservative folks in New Mexico on this deal. So what are we to do? We're just answering to the public. And a large part of that is the New Mexico Wildlife Federation sending out an email telling people, indicating how they should vote. And there's a few things on there that are somewhat misleading, in my opinion.

And I hate even addressing them as the New Mexico Wildlife Federation because that sounds like somebody we should be affiliated with when in reality, you know, the results speak for themselves and what they stand for speaks for themselves. Yeah. Well, I have, I'm not totally familiar with the way their system works, but from what I understand, each one of the state chapters or state organizations of the Wildlife Federation really are not obligated to follow any of the guidelines or regulations that the national organization has. So it's kind of unlike us. We don't have any financial ties, the Wildlife, the Wild Sheep Foundation. But we are tied at the hip with our mission and purpose and our bylaws.

Well, it seems like everything they've proposed has been somewhat rogue in my mind. Yeah. Is that your take on it? Yes, I think this is a rogue operation. And I think from what I've seen, we have a game commission, four members of the game commission who are willing to buy into this. And there's got to be some political reason why this is going on. This is not, I can't believe it's only for two, three, four additional resident tags. There's got to be something else behind the scenes. And I just. It's been brought up, landowner tags being allocated percentage wise instead of just who wants to buy them. You know what I mean? Which doesn't even make sense. It doesn't even make sense. Residents can buy them. Non-residents can buy them. I mean, who's to say you have to sell this tag to a resident? You know what I mean? Yeah. Just a whole lot.

And I think something that you guys need to be aware of also, and I'm pretty sure you already are, and this affects not only the bighorn sheep hunters. This game commission in the state of New Mexico is trying to eliminate the elk hunting E-plus system. Yeah. Which is the landowner tag system. Which is the landowner's tag, which is where most huge amount of money comes from for New Mexico wildlife. And it's private dollars. I've bought those tags. My money helps appease landowners in New Mexico game and fish. It helps alleviate a burden from them. Not totally. They've got to deal with the program and work it out. And it's not without pain and suffering. But it could be much worse. You know what I mean? And so it's, geez. But it is the same crowd, exactly the same crowd that is pushing to eliminate E-plus. It is pushing this issue. Yeah.

And I get the feeling, we get the feeling that this bighorn sheep change, allocation change that they want to do, is just a stepping stone to attack E-plus, which may be their big target. Gotcha. Gotcha. So I think if you, I think to protect the elk hunters, you know, maybe it would be a good idea to send out a notice and tell people where to go to make a comment. Well, and I think your point is, is where is this all headed? This may, initially, your thoughts are this only affects people that are interested in sheep. It only affects a few people. It's not the end of the world. And your point is, this is a broader subject. We're all going to find out, you know. Yes. Everybody should be concerned. Anybody that hunts in New Mexico or is a non-resident of New Mexico should be concerned. I think that's a point well taken. Yes. Yes.

And they are also going to, in the legislature, they have already made it very clear that they are going to try to eliminate the outfitter pool, period. Yeah. Well, and that, I guess, may be one point by, stand up against something like this if you're a non-resident hunter that likes to apply or hunt in New Mexico, because we're talking about bighorn sheep today. But it's something else tomorrow, and it's something else next week, and it's something else the next time. And it just, I mean, we can't, there's a lot of things that we don't get involved in as Epic Outdoors or maybe as non-residents, because, yeah, we understand residents to a large extent should have a lot more say in the management in their own state. But when stuff is going to be eliminated or so egregious on one end of the spectrum, I think it's time to say something, because, yeah, you give away something, what's your

next thing that you're going to give up? And pretty soon, you've got a resident constituency that thinks that they've won every battle, and all of a sudden they lose the war because their state goes broke, their agency goes broke because non-residents have dried up the application pool, the hunting license purchases, the matching PR funds, all of the above. And they've, you know, you know. Affects wildlife. Immensely affects wildlife. Oh. And some of this doesn't seem like it would initially, but the domino effect is monumental. Oh, yeah. I mean, the amount of money that comes into the state, not only that, but actually outfitters and guys are a small business operation, but they bring in tens of millions of dollars into New Mexico every year. We have lots of small little communities that are upheld by hunting. It's the truth. Yeah. I mean, Reserve New Mexico.

I mean, some of these places, Magdalena, some of these places are upheld by hunting. Yeah. And it's awesome. It's awesome. Yeah. So. All right. Anyway, that's the story. And if you guys want to try to help us out, we have no, we don't oppose that. We send out an email to all of our membership telling the whole story in detail. Well, and that's what prompted our call to you, Brian. You know, we got it. We've had affiliation with you for years. And that's what prompted our call to you just to kind of have a visit about it today. We'll appreciate your time. Before we tie up today, we'll kind of make that comment channels known to our listeners and see if we can get some support to just leave things the way it currently is in terms of Bacorn Sheep Tag distribution methodology. Yes. Yes. Sounds good, buddy. We appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks for taking some time.

And yeah, well, you've got our support and we'll do the best we can. Like I say, the current system, it may not be perfect and everybody's got opinions, right? None of them are necessarily wrong. We all have opinions. But when you see something that's, you know, on the front burner, this is definitely coming down the pipe right now. And it could have major, major drastic effects on hunting and game animals. And prosperity, whatever. So, I mean, it's hard not to address it. And so, anyway, we'll see what we can do. All right, buddy. Thanks, Brian. Appreciate your time. Thanks for the time. I appreciate being able to tell you guys the whole story. You bet. Thank you. Have a good day. Yeah. You bet. Bye.

Pretty enlightening. And it's a little disheartening at some points that, I mean, special interest groups, whatever you want to call them, exist in every state. Sometimes your stuff comes out of left field. And this one just feels like, why pick this particular fight? Seems like such a small fight to pick. Why make this a big issue? Like you said, there's been other things. It's talking about the landowner tax system. Not even just doing away with it, adjusting it so that the allocations, the 84, 10, 6 split affects the tags you buy. Yeah. The landowner tax system. You get a landowner tag and you've got to sell it to a guided client. Yeah. Or you've got to sell it to a non-resident, unguided client. Or you've got to sell it to a resident. And now you're game and fish. How do you say, okay, you have been allocated a tag for a resident.

We're going to do a sub-drawing of landowners within Unit X. 6%, 10%, 84% of how you can sell your tag. And New Mexico's one place. Bronson, we've seen it. There is nothing off the table. Hey, you want to eliminate hunting altogether? Very possible there in New Mexico. You never know. All right. Let's get the New Mexico Guides and Outfitters Association. Just take on it. I don't necessarily want to go through the whole gamut again. Let's just see what Kerry Romero has to say. And visit real quick. This is Kerry. Kerry, it's Jason Carter and Adam Bronson at Epic Outdoors. How are you? Hi, guys. How are you? We're doing good. We're doing a podcast. We just wanted to talk. And we don't want to take much of your time. But if you've got a few minutes, we just want to kind of get your take on, of course,

the issue everybody's thinking about day and night, which would be the meeting coming up on Friday and the allocation of tags and kind of get your guys' take on it. We've kind of got the history. We talked to Brian Bartlett with the Wild Sheet Foundation already, and we've kind of laid all that big stage of kind of where it came from, how we're in this predicament, why the interpretation with New Mexico Game or New Mexico Wildlife Federation is what they're trying to contend and the potential ramifications of, yeah, losing a big bunch of non-resident support in terms of license fees, application fees, whatever else it is. But, yeah, just wanted to get your perspective from Guide and Outfitter Association perspective on this and, you know. Maybe what we can do to help. Yeah. Sure, yeah. So the meeting on Friday is a very important meeting.

It's not the final meeting, but most of the meetings that will be after this meeting are what I would call, like, procedural. So this is the big one. This is where the commission will kind of take the direction that they're going to take, ultimately, vote on towards, you know, further on in the year, August, maybe October, depending on how controversial it is. But really the fear is that there's one particular commissioner that is pushing very aggressively to eliminate non-resident opportunity. And so kind of our fear is just that she will be persuasive in persuading some of the other commissioners to vote her way. And so we just really are trying to educate the other commissioners on the importance of maintaining non-resident opportunity.

And then also educating the resident hunters that, you know, the New Mexico Wildlife Federation is making it sound like the New Mexico resident hunters are going to stand to obtain hundreds. No, the resident hunters are going to, you know, really gain hundreds of tags. And it's going to be so beneficial in their odds. They're going to go up. It's like five or six or seven. Yeah. Yeah. Seven with Rockies and deserts. Non-resident tags. Correct. Exactly. There's only seven non-resident tags to begin with. So we're not talking about a substantial amount of opportunity that the residents stand to gain. So but what we stand to lose if we lose non-resident opportunity is is just it extremely valuable funding source for the conservation of wild sheep in New Mexico. And there would not I'm sure Brian already discussed this. You wouldn't even have the tags you have without it. Right.

We wouldn't even have we wouldn't even have sheep. Yeah. Right. Without non-resident funding. We wouldn't have sheep at all. So. So the 20. We might have some Rockies. Yeah. So the just over 20 tags that the residents currently get on both Rocky and desert wouldn't. Maybe it's 10. Maybe it's five. Maybe it's none. You know what I mean? If we wouldn't have had the participation of non-residents in the past. Oh, for sure. One hundred percent. And it's important to recognize that non-residents still to this day fund over 95 percent of wild sheep conservation in New Mexico. So it's not like, you know, we got this big sheep population and then suddenly the residents stepped up to the plate. No, the non-residents are still funding the majority of the program. Well, and that's what we're kind of talking about today. You're you.

Is this this big of a fight for six or seven tags a year for the potential? Not only auction raffle tag reduction if that happens because some people want to boycott or whatever. But but you've also then eliminate license sales and application fees for non-residents for sheep or potentially other things. If they just say, hey, all right, you're not going to be friendly non-residents. You don't have a point system. I'm leaving you alone. I'm not going to play your game anymore. And I know residents might say, well, all right, don't play our game. That's fine. But easy to say that. And then when the X's and O's hits the paper on your funding sources for programs and there's a stark realization of what you've really lost instead of gaining six or seven sheep tags. What have you really lost?

And it's in the millions of dollars, you know, hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars a year in terms of non-resident license application fees alone just for those six or seven tags. Right. Which adds up seven of 50. Seven of 50 is like 14 percent. Yes. It's not like we're taking half the tags. Yeah. It might be 12 to 14 percent of the tags. You know, it's not egregious. It's within the framework of 16 percent, which can go in the guided and unguided pool, you know, an 84 percent guaranteed to residents. And one thing that I think is important to point out from an outfitter industry perspective is that this fight that the New Mexico Council of Outfitters and Guides and also the New Mexico Wild Sheep Foundation is taking on is not about outfitter. This is about non-resident opportunity. This is about non-resident opportunity.

Outfitters in the state of New Mexico already book a large percentage of the New Mexico residents that draw tags because these are once in a lifetime tags. Sheep are in areas of the state that are very hard to access without livestock. So, outfitters are already booking resident hunters. Our industry could survive. It's not like you're nervous you're going to go belly up. You're not nervous that you're going to go belly up. Exactly. This is just about the health of the industry and the health of hunting in general in New Mexico. And preserving non-resident opportunity because non-resident opportunity is so integral to just not necessarily, I mean, bighorn sheep for sure, but all species. And the non-resident income that comes into the state supports our economy.

You know, the dollars are multiplied more substantially than just resident dollars, hunting dollars that go throughout the state. Non-resident dollars are just very impactful to our rural communities. And it's important to recognize that. So, we're fighting to protect non-resident opportunity, not exclusively guided opportunity. This is just straight non-resident opportunity. Six or seven non-resident sheep tags, spread amounts, hundreds of outfitters in New Mexico is nothing. It doesn't even. Right. Negligible. Well, and there's so few outfitters that even do bighorn sheep hunts. I don't want to minimize it, but we're talking, yeah, that's not your purpose for taking the fight. So, the importance of commenting via email, I mean, we need to band together in the next 24 hours, inundate, you know, some people with some emails. Is that the best way to go about expressing our opinions?

That would be really fantastic if you guys could help with that. I would really, really appreciate it. I'd be glad to send you the email addresses of the commissioners and then also just the general public comment portal. And so, you could, you know, post that along with your podcast information. And then people can just send their emails there. And if you are a New Mexico resident and you can see the value in maintaining non-resident opportunity, make sure you say that. Because non-resident, just realistically, non-residents are not going to carry as much weight as New Mexico residents are with the politicians that are basically appointed by New Mexico residents. Well, and I'm not sure the residents understand the gravity of it. I don't even know. At times, they're being fed, and I've seen the emails from the other side.

They're just being fed what, you know, and it may at first glance seem reasonable. I want more tax for me. Yeah, I want more tax. I don't want non-residents have been taking more than their fair share. Yeah, let's change this, you know. And so, I think it's important for residents. I mean, a lot of residents just aren't privy to what exactly is going on. It's just like the rest of us. We have day jobs. We're working. We're doing our thing. And you guys are the ones attending the meetings and seeing the potential ramifications of it all. Right. Yeah, I agree. Of the New Mexico residents that I've spoken with about the issue, if they understand really the way that the money flows into the conservation of New Mexico wild sheep, then they get it. And they are completely on board with maintaining non-resident opportunity.

It's the guys that have been kind of bamboozled by the dangling of more opportunity. They want to increase their odds. But seven tags is not going to increase your odds. No. It does not. It's not. All right. Well, we appreciate it. Yeah, we've got the emails. Anything else, we will mention them here after we hang up with you and leave it in the people's hands that listen, residents and non-residents, to hopefully get their comments in by hopefully Thursday night. That's what we're going to encourage you to do. Thank you, guys. All right. I really appreciate your efforts on this, and thanks for all you do for the industry. You bet. Thanks, Carrie. All right. Take care. Bye-bye. Well, we've hammered pretty hard. Let's read a few of those out, Carter. Maybe just the main one. I mean – Well, and then I think we post it in our social media channels. We'll post the other emails.

We probably ought to read one or two of them. Right before we do that, Bronson, can we just – they had a meeting. Let's call it a task force meeting. They had a kind of a behind-the-scenes meeting that included, you know, some of the different entities, decision makers, and, you know, people like Carrie. We're in attendance. Backcountry hunters and anglers. A guy by the name of Brandon Wynn, who's been influential in the past. I'm not sure if he's got a current title. The New Mexico Council of Guides and Outfitters, the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, which we've talked about, the Wild Sheep Foundation, the Game Commission, and the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. And this is their stance. So backcountry hunters and anglers, they expressed that they were present to listen and would remain neutral. Okay. So backcountry hunters and anglers, no support for keeping it the way it is.

They're just going to remain neutral, non-confrontational. So Brandon Wynn does not like – The current lumping. Yeah, the current lumping. Other states restrict non-resident license more than New Mexico and went on about, you know, led to the current lumping strategy. Ultimately, the license allocation issue can only be resolved by the legislature. He wants to send it to the legislature. New Mexico Council of Guides and Outfitters, they are in favor of the current system, the 84, 6, and 10 split. But the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, they think that it requires statutory change. Talked about the Attorney General and different things. And so anyway, definitely kind of in favor of the change, which we've talked about. They want to eliminate the lumping, which would eliminate non-resident participation.

And, of course, the New Mexico Wild Sheep Foundation, we've talked to them here on the podcast. And the current system is fair. That's the way they look at it. So with that – Heard all sides of the argument. But I guess we'll read – do you want to read all five of these or do you just want to give the main one? I'm going to let you – Well, I want some direction because I don't want to read five if I'm not told to read five. I think you should. I think you should read five if somebody's on the road or whatever or the main one and we can post the others. It's totally up to you. That's what I was going to say. There's a main email for comments here. It's dgf-bighorn-rule at state.nm.us. So that's dgf-bighorn-rule at state.nm.us. That's the main comment email. We're assuming that will get disseminated to all the commissioners.

But what we're also going to do on our Instagram page, Chris, when we post this podcast, is we'll list that email that I just read along with the four Game and Fish Commissioner emails for you to just send your comments to and voice your opinion on things. And I don't know, maybe just incentivize. You know, we don't do stuff. It's a whole lot. It feels like we're giving this a ton of attention, which I guess we kind of are. A, it's June 1st. What else are we going to talk about? But this is kind of a big deal. There's some scouting going on. Yeah, but we're in the office midweek. There's some good things. There's some fun things going on. But maybe what we'll just do to sweeten the deal, then maybe get people to, you know, voice your opinion, resident or non-resident. If you send that email and voice your support, more or less of maintaining non-resident involvement

and ability to play for sheep tags in New Mexico, whether that says leave the status quo or keep it intact or whatever it is. You know, how about you blind? Info. Info at epicoutdoors.com. That's an email address that we get and see all the time. But if you blind carbon copy or if you CC, it doesn't really matter. Blind's not the key word. Rather probably blind it. But if you blind it that way, you know, get it, we'll put your name in as an entry for a new rangefinder. Viper HD 3000 made by Vortex. Brand new. Laser rangefinder. Seven power rangefinder. Reflective distance of 3000. Has angle compensation, line of sight, or horizontal component distance technology in there. We'll give this, it's a $400 rangefinder. We'll give it away free to somebody. That's significant. Yeah. Four bills. Just getting, you know, it's easy to talk about something and, hey, I'm guilty of it too.

There's been things in the past that I've been very vocal about and I got involved in a combat on. Others that I thought of, would have, should have, and didn't take the time to. This is maybe one of those, just maybe take the time to do it. So blind info at epicoutdoors.com on there and you'll get thrown in for a free rangefinder. And it doesn't have to be confrontational conflict. No. It could be just simple. Leave it as is or, hey, kick the non-resident out. Whatever. Yeah. Or I just want to be able to maintain, spend my hunting license dollars in New Mexico. And, you know, if the sheep's limited, it's going to vastly, you know, this is me talking. It's going to, you know, year to year, it's going to impact. Sheep is a constant for me. I don't have to worry about sheep and drought. I'll always buy a license and apply for sheep. And if the deer and elk are good, I'll apply that year.

If it's a drought year and I don't want to apply for elk sometimes down there, they don't have a point system. And now I can't get more bang for the buck out of my license purchase. Even though sheep odds are slim, I'm always going to apply for sheep no matter what. Hey, it might make me think now. And they're going to lose 100 plus bucks out of me every year that I don't do that now by hunting license and application fees. Well, and I think there's people out there that are saying, well, Epic Outdoors stands to lose if, you know, things are cut out and things like that. There may, you know, at times I guess you could say that. Honestly, Bronson, do we do anything like that? Are we doing that for the – is this the reason we're doing this podcast? It's just like the outfitter and guides. You're talking about six or seven sheep tags and spread out amongst other outfitters.

That's negligible. For clients of ours that draw sheep tags, one or two a year, I don't know, three, sometimes four, whatever. It's negligible. It's a drop in the bucket. But it's the principle of having something taking away – a fight that is not egregiously wrong to begin with, 12% to 14% of our tags currently being issued to non-residents. That's not egregious. We're for, you know, residents getting the majority. That's, you know, 85% plus already going to you guys as residents. It's not egregious. Just eliminate it and, yeah, we can forget about your state pretty quick in other terms too and your funding sources. So that's just – money will talk. It will show up in the bottom line for game and fish, mark my words. It will, and residents are going to have to bear that burden. So be careful what you ask for. They've got sheep today, but it takes a real program to keep them.

So, all right. And I think it goes, you know, and maybe this is the time we maybe start dovetailing into maybe Wyoming a little bit. We're kind of talking about, to some extent, the – Colorado. Yeah, Colorado. The North American wildlife model for wildlife conservation, you know, in terms of having an access for the public to have it. The wildlife is the public's trust. And I know everybody can argue, yeah, but our states, you know, get to – it's our state's wildlife. And while that is true, there's a lot of things built in to the North American wildlife model to try to maintain – I don't know if equality is the right word, but good distribution. You know, it was developed to go against the European model, which is privatization of everything. I own it. You come here and hunt. I own my wildlife. You pay me. You come and hunt my wildlife.

Wildlife, you know, it's different than that out west. And it feels like when we're talking about Wyoming, we're starting to infringe upon that too. And I don't know if we have time. You want to go into the Wyoming stuff? I think – I don't know that we need to go over it because we did a little bit initially. But I think what you – I think we should talk about the model, the North American model of wildlife conservation. And just read about a couple of these premises. And see in your own mind. See how it resonates. You listeners, in your own mind, does this resonate with you? Do you agree with it? And if you agree with it, does it correlate or go along with current states and the tag allocations or the different things that we're facing? And it may change, you know, your excitement or lack thereof on the different changes and maybe even your participation and voicing your opinion.

Bronson. Well, these are, you know, from early conservation pioneers like, you know, George Grindle and Teddy Roosevelt, you know, and he formed the Ben and Crockett Club. So this is where some of these premises were formed. And these govern all Western wildlife agencies. You know, this is the premise that the wildlife is in the public trust. You're there to manage for the public benefit. But I'm going to read it verbatim. Bear with me just a little bit so that you don't – you have to get Adam's take on it. And you're going to get, you know, what the North American model of wildlife conservation model is. It is a set of principles that represent values toward wildlife and guides how it is to be used appropriately and managed. It provides a systematic way of understanding many of the conventions, laws, policies, and institutions that affect wildlife.

Unlike many other nations, wildlife conservation in the United States and Canada is based on the notion that wildlife belongs to the people, not the government, not private landowners, or individuals. The model includes seven fundamental principles. And I'll read those. Number one, wildlife resources are a public trust to be managed by governments for the benefit of all citizens. Two, unregulated commercial markets for wild game that decimate wildlife populations should be eliminated or are eliminated. Three, allocation is by law, meaning that laws are developed by citizens and forced by government agencies to regulate the proper use and management of wildlife. Four, opportunity for all, which means that every citizen has the freedom to view, hunt, fish, regardless of social or economic status.

Five, wild game populations cannot be killed casually, but only for legitimate purposes defined by law. Six, wildlife can be considered an international resource because wildlife migrates across political boundaries. And seven, science is the proper basis for wildlife policy and management, not opinion or conjecture in order to sustain wildlife populations. These principles were assembled and framed as the North American model of wildlife conservation. So there's a few of those, and I don't, we could go back and read it. There's a few of those that feel like they're being infringed upon on some of these things we're talking about. With, you know, opportunity for all, whether we're talking about social or economic status, by pulling tags out and make you have to, you know, eliminating tags and having to go through a guide or outfitter only to receive them in certain places. I don't know.

Have those in the back of your mind as we're hearing, as you remember about some of the stuff we talked about today, as we maybe talk about the Wyoming stuff moving forward. There's even tags here in Utah that don't only allow residents to bid on them. I mean, there's, it's not, and we're not in favor of that either. There's not necessarily, it's not like a one size fits all and there's, we're only picking on a couple of things. It may be Oregon. It may be Utah. It may be Wyoming. It may be New Mexico. I think some of these bigger issues, Colorado's talking about some major change. And I think it's good to review some of these and just say, as we're making changes, change is fine. Change is good and at times we need it to keep up with the different changes in mindset and social, you know, biological, whatever case may be. And technologies and tactics, hunting tactics and things like that.

At times there's change needs to occur. But I think we need to revisit this and say, are we alienating the exact people who helped us get to the point we're at? Oh, exactly right. And, and base things in science and that solely opinion and conjecture and all those types of things, which feels like creeps into a lot of states. We're not isolating New Mexico in this, in this sense, we've come hammered them. But you want to talk about another state? There's other states that have a lot of personal opinion by four or six or eight commissioners that will drive everything. And it's not science-based. It's a total opinion. And yeah, they, they, they will the gavel right there at the time. They can make the shots, but, but these, these are the principles that we're supposed to be managing wildlife in the Western, well, in all North America.

And if we, at times when this change circumvents the game commission, Department of Wildlife and goes to the legislature, it's a, it's pretty permanent. Yeah. It's hard to go back on things like that. Yeah. And wildlife belongs to the people, not the government and private landowners. So, yeah, we send it to the legislature and that feels like, okay, we got some, we got some, something done, but that's not how it's supposed to be done. Now we understand every state interprets how to implement their laws and their rules differently. That's where things get sticky. That's where things can get out of whack a little bit. Well, and the legislature is not privy to all the different game and fish commission meetings, the racks here in Utah, regional advisory councils, the cabs, the counter advisory, you know, commissions, boards in, in Nevada, or whatever the case may be.

The legislature is not privy to all of those. And so it undermines by doing things like that. It undermines the people that have been working so hard. Really in the grassroots. And let's face it, when you get to that level, how much of what gets passed or pushed also has other strings attached to it because, well, I'll help you on this bill. You can help mine over here and, you know, pharmaceuticals or whatever. We witnessed it. You know, it goes on all the time when it gets to that level. And it would be nice in our industry with wildlife to do what's right for wildlife. That's right. That's basically what the model is. Do what's right for wildlife. Do err on wildlife's side of it. Manage it properly based on science for all and all meaning the citizens, the people. So anyway. All right. Well, let's see. Josh. Yeah. What do you have to say?

I think just listening to all of it and taking it all in, we talk to a lot of guys here. And most of those, I would say, are non-residents, you know, from all over the country. And also we do applications for guys. And it's a pretty clear difference on states that allow non-resident hunting opportunity, the amount of non-residents that partake of that opportunity. Whereas there's also states that either they have priced a lot of non-residents out or reduced permits to the point where there is a point. And I think some of these states think, hey, we'll raise prices and they'll still put in. But I think that initially that could be the case and guys will continue to apply. But there are states that may or may not touch the ocean on the western coast that guys finally decide after so long, say, hey, you know what? I'm out. I'm out.

And then, and now you see those same states, whether it's the non-residents constituents or not that are going in and out of that. I think there is some, I don't know what you call it, interest by the states that gets lost over time. And I think they start to not really care too much about their wildlife management because either they don't have the money, they don't have the influx or people interest coming to the state. So they say, yeah, there's some deer out here. We're okay with that. We're just going through the motions. And so, so it's taken a downfall. And now I think in some of those states, the residents are getting very, very heated and angry because I don't think that those state agencies are managing their wildlife too much because it's not doing much for them. It's not making much money.

It's not a big priority to a lot of the residents because also a lot of those residents, people are moving out of those states and to go other places. So I don't know. That's what. Well, and they're frustrated. There's a lot of frustration out there when over-the-counter tags are being, you know, done away with, so to speak, because we have challenges in our wildlife populations. Arizona's over-the-counter. You know what I mean? And there's frustration. So the residents are saying, I'm frustrated, and the quickest thing to fix this is, you know, eliminate non-resident participation in their mind. Yeah. New Mexico, I'm frustrated. Can't draw anymore. Well, there's been droughts. There's other things. Nevada, people are frustrated, right? We're all frustrated. You know, things aren't what they were 10 and 20 years ago. Yeah.

And I know as well, I personally, I just sit down with my wife and we maybe try to plan a vacation or something. New Mexico doesn't generally reach the top of that list. So honestly, I don't plan on going to New Mexico for any other reasons other than hunting. So really, New Mexico, and they don't care. I'm one person. Maybe they don't care. But they're going to start missing out on a lot of dollars because there's a lot of non-residents guys in general that go vacation there for five days or two weeks or whatever it is and spend money there. And that's the gas stations, the pop and pop, whatever. You know, I think when you start eliminating that, that's when you'll start to see a shift in game management in states. So, Chris, we've learned a lot today, honestly. If you haven't been following the subject, I think you're well informed out there, general listener. What's your opinion?

What scares me is when these decisions become political. For people. Yeah. And most of that is because it's swayed to one side in New Mexico right now. But the general public, take the general guy, do they understand how wildlife works? If you ask them, how is wildlife funded? They don't know. They don't realize that hunting dollars are what is supporting wildlife. They don't know that. What if the whole general public thinks that hunting is bad? Yeah. And hunting. They don't realize. Well, if we killed less, there'd be more. Exactly. They don't realize that, well, yeah, if you stop hunting, there's going to be more wildlife. That's not the case. If you stop hunting, wildlife will suffer and that population is going to shrink. Back to those numbers that we were looking at earlier in the podcast. It's going to go back to that because there's no funding to manage these programs.

And I think the general guy doesn't realize that. And so they may be supporting some political movement to stop hunting, but they don't realize it's ultimately going to hurt wildlife. And that's what scares me. You have people making decisions that don't understand the ramifications of those decisions. Imagine the change you've seen since COVID or whatever in life in general. And I think what's nerve-wracking for me, it's one thing like 10 years ago to say, you know, hunters are important, yada, yada. But I never felt like threatened. I felt like we had a viable industry and that hunting was going to continue forever. And now you can see. There's changes that I mean. You can't give them an inch because the mile's coming right after that. It feels like you've got to dig your heels in. Hunters need to band together.

We need to try to, within the hunting ranks, we've had a lot of disagreements. We need to try to put those things like, hey, I want a 75% let off and I want 80. We're going to fight to the death. Put off the little petty crap all the time amongst hunters and let's try to refocus on the real crap coming down the pipes. Within every state, you've got issues there. So, Chris, we'll post this up on our social media by tonight with these email addresses. We've talked to you how to enter to win a Viper HD 3000. Appreciate Vate Vortex and being a sponsor of our podcast and do that. Help us out with that. Just take three minutes. That's all. Three minutes and send you an email. You can be done with it. I get it. We're all busy. Do it. Take three minutes and do it. Okay. All right. That's about all I got. Bronson? I'm done. You did your parting words, everybody? We're good? All right.

Well, we appreciate you all. We love our industry. You can tell we're passionate about it. We're excited about some draw results. We're excited some of these application deadlines are coming and gone. And now we can get to the scouting. Get your email sent by Thursday night. That's right. Let 2020 to 2022 begin. At Epic Outdoors, we help you reach your hunting dreams, whether it's helping you to develop a long-term application strategy or finding the perfect outfitter for your next hunt. As a member of Epic Outdoors, you'll also receive the Epic Outdoors magazine and have access to the best hunting consultants in the industry, online tools, and more. To join Epic Outdoors, visit epicoutdoors.com or call 435-263-0777.