It’s a “No” on Senate Bill 5

By Tom Shelley

I have worked closely on wildlife management and conservation issues in New Mexico for more than three decades. The subject matters greatly to anyone who hunts or fishes or lives or works near our wildlife or simply enjoys our wildlife species.

Senate Bill 5 could reach the House of Representatives for a vote early this week. We need to stop it. The bill would send the Game Commission down the same, overreaching path that the US Fish and Wildlife Service has been on over the past century. 

The ranchers and farmers who do more for wildlife than almost anyone are overwhelmingly against this bill. That’s because we have experienced how “wildlife management” has been weaponized against rural decisions on land management, maintaining water supplies and infrastructure over time. 

SB5 supporters have claimed that the bill will change nothing. That is false. Under SB5, the Commission would have regulatory power over land use, wildlife, and industry beyond what most legislators have been told. The bill expands the Game Commission’s scope, going beyond game management into habitat regulation. The Commission could interfere with many of New Mexico’s most important economic drivers such as farming, drilling, grazing, or infrastructure projects in areas it now deems critical for State-listed species of concern. Private landowners, ranchers, and businesses could face new regulatory barriers that would threaten their continued operations and the local employment those operations support. 

Please help keep the Game Commission focused on the scope it has had.  Please call your representative and ask him or her to vote “No” on SB5.

*Tom Shelley is a retired environmental manager. He raises cattle in Grant County and serves as a Grant County Commissioner. He lives in Silver City.