New Mexico Administrative Code › Title 19 - NATURAL RESOURCES AND WILDLIFE › Chapter 30 - WILDLIFE ADMINISTRATION › Part 2 - DEPREDATION ASSISTANCE › Section 19.30.2.7 - DEFINITIONS

Current through Register Vol. 35, No. 13, July 16, 2024
A. Game animals:
				This regulation shall apply to only those wildlife species defined as protected
				under
				17-2-3,
				17-5-2,
				17-2-13,
				17-2-14
				NMSA 1978 and any other wildlife species managed or regulated by the New Mexico
				state game commission and New Mexico department of game and fish.
B. "Depredation" is hereby defined as private
				property damage, including growing crops or harvested and stored crops, caused
				by game animals on privately owned or leasehold private land, such that the
				damage caused results in a measurable loss of value. This definition may apply
				to private property that occurs on other than private land, as reasonable and
				appropriate, as determined by the department.
C. "Threat to human life" shall mean that
				death or great bodily harm is likely to occur to a person due to the closeness,
				aggression or attack of a game animal or quadruped.
D. "Immediate threat to human life" shall
				mean that an attack is so imminent that nothing, short of destruction, can be
				done to avert the aggression.
E.
				"Immediate threat of damage to property or crops" shall mean that game animals
				exist in such numbers that there is no time for intervention by the department
				to avert substantial private property damage.
F. "Crops" shall mean any cultivated field or
				forage, whether sown or natural, which is used chiefly for livestock in that
				the landowner harvests the product to feed livestock or commercially sell it;
				or any other feed or commercially sold product that may be stored on properties
				for future shipping or marketing or any other crop grown to provide human
				subsistence.
G. "Attractive
				nuisance" shall mean any crop or other material placed on a landowner's
				property to intentionally draw in protected wildlife.
H. "Landowner" is any person who personally
				owns private property legally recognized by the state of New Mexico.
I. "Lessee" is any person who leases private
				property from another in order to grow crops or produce livestock.
J. "Employee" is any person who is paid by a
				landowner or lessee for providing services to the landowner or lessee and that
				the service is related to the depredation.
K. "Take" shall mean to trap, ensnare, or
				intentionally prevent the natural movement of a game animal or
				quadruped.
L. "Leasehold interest"
				shall mean any person who leases or rents private agricultural property,
				whether or not that person is responsible for the crop or livestock.
M. "Quadruped" shall mean any furbearing
				animal, as defined in
				17-5-2
				NMSA 1978, for which the department has jurisdiction (muskrat, mink, nutria,
				otter, weasel, beaver, masked or black-footed ferret, ringtail cat, raccoon,
				pine marten, coatimundi, badger, bobcat, and all foxes).
N. "Good cause" as used herein shall mean
				either or both of the following.
(1) The
				landowner can document that the intervention offered would cause physical
				damage to persons or property.
(2)
				The landowner can document that the intervention offered will not result in a
				substantial lessening of the depredation it is intended to affect.
(3) In either instance the claim of good
				cause by the landowner must be made in good faith and supported with facts
				sufficient reasonably to meet either or both of the above criteria and provided
				to the department in written form within ten (10) days following the proposed
				interventions being communicated to the landowner or lessee.