Keegan King of Acoma Pueblo has witnessed a growing number of hunters with out-of-state license plates when he hunts in the Gila National Forest and other parts of New Mexico.
This spring, King drew only a javelina tag in the state’s big-game lottery, meaning he will not have a shot at bringing home an elk or deer this year. He’s one of many hunters in the Land of Enchantment who are frustrated with the state’s system of allocating hunting licenses and tags, contending it favors wealthy sportsmen from out of state. They are calling for reforms.
“I spoke with one tribal leader today who had been putting in for about a decade and didn’t receive a tag in that time,” King, executive director of the Native Lands Institute, said earlier this week. The tribal leader decided to forgo the lottery system, he added, “which is a shame because our state public lands, our federal public lands, are ancestral hunting grounds for many of our Indigenous communities.”
Two tribal governors told King this week they would support license-allocation reforms, he said. “I know a number of households and families that rely on wild game for their food source for the year. And not being able to get a tag is hurting a lot of families right now.”
Big-game draw results from the New Mexico Department of Wildlife came out this week, disappointing the roughly 230,000 hunters who did not get what they wanted from the lottery. Elk draws in particular spark the ire of some sportsmen, who often cite a system that sends a large portion of elk tags in the state each spring to private landowners, who can sell them to anyone at any price for hunts on their private land and, in some cases, nearby public land.
Reports from the New Mexico Wildlife Federation in recent years say the Elk Private Land Use System — better known as EPLUS — has diverted nearly 40% of the total elk tags to landowners in recent years. In 2025, according to the Department of Wildlife’s numbers, about 36% of elk tags in the state were sold through EPLUS for hunts on private ranch land rather than strictly on public lands.
The New Mexico Wildlife Federation’s reports indicate elk licenses issued through EPLUS and through hunting outfitters in the lottery system overwhelmingly go to hunters who live out of state. The organization’s 2024 report states about 13,600 of the roughly 36,000 elk licenses issued in 2023 were issued through EPLUS landowner authorizations for private land hunts, or about 38%; about 75% of those licenses — some 10,200 — were divvied to out-of-staters.
Department of Wildlife spokesperson Darren Vaughn noted not all EPLUS licenses have been sold so far in 2026. But he provided department data from 2025 that shows at least 52% of the 38,675 elk licenses issued that year went to New Mexico hunters through the annual big-game draw for public land hunts.
The data shows over 71% of the 75,079 total big-game licenses issued in 2025, which includes the EPLUS private land licenses for elk hunts, went to hunters in the state through the lottery. Nearly 88% of lottery licenses — including for deer, elk, oryx, pronghorn antelope and bighorn sheep — went directly to in-state hunters, higher than the required minimum of 84%. About 6% went directly to out-of-state hunters and another 6% went to hunters who applied through a contract with a licensed New Mexico outfitter.
The 2026 licenses issued through the lottery were divvied in almost exactly the same portions.
New Mexico hunters can apply for elk hunting opportunities through the public draw, alone or through an outfitter, or obtain license authorizations from private landowners via the EPLUS program. However, the public draw, without the help of an outfitter, is the most affordable way to go, costing $50 to $100 for a license rather than potentially thousands of dollars for an outfitter contract or EPLUS authorization.
Critics say out-of-state hunters who have contracts with outfitters have much better odds of drawing coveted big-game hunts than state residents without an outfitter contract in the general draw, said Jesse Deubel, executive director of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation. That’s because fewer people enter the outfitter draw, Deubel said.
An online search for elk hunting services indicates outfitters charge at least $5,000 and sometimes thousands more to arrange such hunts. Some outfitters are local, while others are based outside New Mexico.
Vaughn, in response to criticism of the system, said in a statement, “The Department works diligently to meet statutory requirements for tag allocation. While we recognize not all are satisfied with the allocation, there are many who are satisfied. The allocation of tags is challenging given the limited resource and public interest.”
He added, “No system is perfect.”
Hunting has long been big business in the state, bringing in out-of-state hunters who are willing to pay big money for good odds of a successful hunt — whether through private landowner authorizations or outfitter contracts.
The EPLUS program was created in recognition of “the important benefits that private lands make to the elk populations and hunting opportunities” in the state, according to the Wildlife Department’s website, giving hunters and landowners a way to work together to effectively manage and hunt elk on private lands.
It provides “food security” and “positive economic impacts” in rural parts of the state where limited economic opportunities exist, states a website made by supporters of EPLUS.
But one of the controversial aspects of the program allows some licensed hunters to hunt on both public and private land. The program has two types of authorizations for landowners — “ranch-only” and “unit-wide” statuses. A hunter with a unit-wide authorization can hunt “legally accessible public lands” as well as on private ranches within the same “game management unit,” according to the website eplus.org, which is run by EPLUS proponents.
Advocates also argue in favor of the much-needed economic benefits they say outfitters bring to rural communities by drawing out-of-state hunters as part of the state’s growing outdoor tourism industry.
Some tribal governments, including the Jicarilla Apache Nation in Northern New Mexico and Mescalero Apache Nation in Southern New Mexico, hold their own big-game hunting draws each year for nontribal members.
Some tribes also offer hunts and draws for their tribal members.
State Sen. Crystal Brantley, R-Elephant Butte, whose family runs a hunting outfitting business on the Gila National Forest near Winston, posted a statement on social media saying out-of-state hunters play a major role in keeping rural economies alive.
“They book with our NM Outfitters and Guides, provide job opportunities, stay in our hotels, eat in our restaurants, and buy fuel in our small towns,” she said in the statement. “In many communities across our district, that seasonal revenue isn’t extra — it’s essential.”
Brantley said that means supporting hunting in New Mexico isn’t an either/or conversation: “Residents are the backbone of our hunting culture. Nonresidents help fuel the economy that supports it. We need both,” she said.
The way the Wildlife Department handles the elk-hunting system has drawn criticism for years. A 2020 Legislative Finance Committee report said “the EPLUS program overwhelmingly benefits out-of-state hunters.”
U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, a New Mexico Democrat and an elk hunter, also has championed reforms of the state hunting system.
“New Mexicans should be the priority when it comes to drawing tags on our public lands, plain and simple,” Heinrich said in a statement this week. “Right now, the system is skewed through convoluted allocations that make it harder for New Mexicans to get real priority on big-game tags. That needs to be fixed.”
Deubel said the New Mexico Wildlife Federation plans to advocate for legislative changes next year to strike the outfitters “set-aside” in the state’s lottery system, adding he feels this is a violation of the state’s anti-donation laws.
“What we’re doing with those outfitter set-asides is we’re taking 10% of a publicly owned resource and handing it to private industry for free and providing no public benefit whatsoever in return,” he said.
“The system is absolutely rigged, and it’s rigged purposely to disenfranchise New Mexicans from the publicly-owned wildlife resources that are held in public trust,” Deubel added.
Vaughn noted interest in big-game hunting has surged in the state since the COVID-19 pandemic, with 291,000 applicants in the lottery system vying for 60,700 licenses this year.
Applications for hunting licenses are due in March. New Mexico hunters try to be strategic in hopes for a good result in April, weighing the odds against hunt-location preferences.
Such preferences factor into draw outcomes, as do the type of hunt desired by the applicant. Hunters pay application fees and license fees up front, although the license fees are reimbursed to hunters who do not draw licenses.
Every hunt offered through the draw has a hunt code containing the location of the hunt, season dates, “the sporting arm” and the bag limit.
The application fee for state residents is $7, compared to $13 for nonresidents. License fees also are significantly lower for New Mexicans. For a mature bull elk, for instance, state residents pay $90, compared to $548 for nonresidents. A standard deer license is $41 for a state resident and $283 for a nonresident.
The Department of Wildlife took in about $17.6 million from the draw this year, compared to $14.4 million last year, according to Vaughn.
Social media reactions this week to the big-game draw show some celebration at outcomes but also plenty of outrage for hunters who “saw red,” meaning their draw result was red, accompanied by the phrase “unsuccessful.”
“19 Years ... NINETEEN YEARS! No elk tag,” one man wrote on Facebook.
“Poor kid can’t even get a deer tag,” another wrote, noting he has “put in” for his daughter for four years, and she has not drawn any big game.