2018 New Mexico Statutes
Chapter 17 - Game and Fish and Outdoor Recreation
Article 3 - Licenses and Permits
Section 17-3-31 - Permit to capture or destroy protected game damaging crops or property; beavers.]

The state game and fish warden [director of the department of game and fish] may grant permits to owners or lessees of land and for the capture or destruction on their lands of any protected game doing damage to their cultivated crops or property; provided, that on said permit or permits so issued as aforesaid, the state game and fish warden shall fix the numerical limit of any protected game so to be captured or destroyed and shall also therein fix the time limit within which any such protected game shall be so captured.

The state game and fish warden shall also grant permits, preferably to owners or lessees of land, for the capture of such beaver as interfere with the operation of any lawful canal, ditch or dam, or cause or threaten the destruction of private property and for the capture of beaver to be transferred from one stream to another; provided, however, that all skins of beaver taken under the provisions of this section shall be turned in to the state game and fish warden, to be by him sold and one-half of the proceeds therefor to be by said state game and fish warden conveyed into the game protection fund and the other one-half of the proceeds to be by said state game and fish warden turned over to the holder of said permit.

History: Code 1915, ch. 47, § 84, added by Laws 1919, ch. 133, § 9; C.S. 1929, § 57-326; 1941 Comp., § 43-319; 1953 Comp., § 53-3-25.

Bracketed material. — The bracketed material was inserted by the compiler and is not part of the law. Laws 1955, ch. 59, § 2 transferred the duties of the state game warden. See 17-1-6 NMSA 1978.

Cross references. — For application of this section to beaver, see 17-5-2 NMSA 1978.

For permits to take fur-bearing animals doing damage, see 17-5-3 NMSA 1978.

A blanket permit may be granted to landowners and lessees of nonurban lands to allow them to kill cottontail rabbits on their own land where the rabbits are damaging cultivated crops or property. 1935-36 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 120.

Permit may issue although property damaged is privately owned. — The state game warden (director of the department of game and fish) may issue permits to kill elk or any other protected animal when they do damage to farms, even though privately owned. 1919-20 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 82.