Neal Trujillo had problems with a couple of hundred antelope munching on his newly green winter-wheat field at his farm near Cimarron.

His answer was to shoot some of them.

The state Department of Game and Fish chased the animals off repeatedly in February and March, helped fence part of his land and offered him more fencing.

Trujillo, in the meantime, shot 39 of the antelope over the course of three weeks. He shot 19 in one day from his all-terrain vehicle, according to Game and Fish Department reports. Trujillo said he had the "Game and Fish Department's attention now ... I got tired of shooting antelope," according to the agency's reports.

Under a state depredation law, Trujillo had the right to shoot the antelope and protect his wheat.

But the way it was handled angered sportsmen and is raising calls for a change in the law.

"I don't blame the landowner for shooting them," said hunter and Springer resident Ed Olona. "He's protecting his livelihood. But I think the situation could have been taken care of a lot better than just letting the landowner go out there and slaughter them and waste the meat. The depredation law should be repealed or changed."

Ranchers, farmers and rural homeowners share their land with wildlife every day — bears, mountain lions, antelope, elk, weasels and beavers. When wildlife start killing their livestock, eating their crops or destroying their front-yard landscaping, landowners look for redress. They'll call the state Department of Game and Fish about the problem. Under the depredation law, the game department is supposed to offer some remedies. Game staff can run off or trap and move the wildlife. When that doesn't work, either game staff or the landowner can shoot the animals.

From July 2006 to June 2007, the Game and Fish Department received 366 depredation complaints statewide involving six main species. The top complaints that period were for bear problems, followed by raccoons and elk. Twenty-two people reported problems with squirrels. From April 1 to June 30, 2007, the department fielded
115 complaints. Among the animals shot after other unsuccessful interventions were 7 antelope, 22 beaver and 7 mountain lions and 58 weasels.

Shooting wildlife is a last resort, according to Game and Fish officials. Usually if it comes to shooting animals, only one or two are killed. When they are big-game animals, game staff try to harvest the meat and sell it to people on a call list.

Once in a while, game staff can't get the animals to leave or a property owner gets mad and shoots several animals. The last depredation case that garnered big media attention was the killing of nine elk and
40 mule deer by a Chama rancher.

State Rep. Jim Trujillo, a Santa Fe Democrat, said he was upset when he heard about the antelope shooting near Cimarron, and is planning to work with colleagues to change the law.

"I might be wrong, but my sense is that this rancher had a hidden agenda," Trujillo said. "Don't know if he wanted them to build him a nice new fence or what."

Sen. Tim Jennings, D-Roswell, who pushed to amend the depredation law in the mid-1990s to allow private landowners to shoot wildlife, said he doesn't approve of Trujillo's use of a shotgun to kill the antelope. But he said wildlife depredation is fundamentally a private-property and just-compensation issue. He said too often in the past the state hasn't found a way to fairly compensate private landowners for damage by wildlife, which are considered state property.

"I don't have problems adjusting the law, but people should be prepared to pay for something they are taking," said Jennings, who says 250 deer and 500 head of cattle share his ranch. "I can't go into 7-Eleven and take a six-pack of beer or a candy bar without paying for it. I can't take a song without paying for it. Someone who makes a living off the ground, their copyright is the grass. If someone comes in and takes my grass, I expect to be paid for it."

Dry years always prompt hungry elk, deer and antelope to seek food in irrigated green fields in the spring. Northeastern New Mexico around Clayton and Cimarron have been in a severe drought since last fall.

Trujillo owns or manages seven ranches and farms around Cimarron. He has called game officials about depredation problems on other fields, but not for the farm where he began shooting the antelope. He first called game staff Feb. 27 to report antelope damaging the fields, according to reports. Officers counted
180 antelope on the field and chased them off with ATVs and motorcycles onto the adjoining CS Ranch. They returned on four different days to haze animals off, but on March 6, Trujillo called to say he had shot "a couple of antelope." Officers found nine dead antelope in Trujillo's field. They salvaged and sold the meat. A game officer returned later that day with a depredation contract and offered fence materials to Trujillo if he would do the work and maintain the fence. Trujillo said he would accept the fencing materials but said Game and Fish would have to do the work. "I'm too busy to put up a fence," Trujillo told a reporter later. "Anything they can do to keep the antelope off would be welcome."

A single strand of barbed wire strung around the bottom of an existing fence is enough to keep most antelope out of a field. "Antelope generally won't jump fences. They go under them," said Lief Ahlm, northeast area operations chief for the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish.

Elk require a much larger, stouter fence to keep them out of fields. The Game and Fish Department pay for materials offered to private landowners through a depredation fund. Money for the fund comes from hunting- and fishing-license fees.

Game officers gave Trujillo cracker shells — shotgun shells loaded with firecrackers that explode on impact and scare animals.

The officers continued to visit Trujillo's field, see smaller numbers of antelope on the fields, but every couple of days Trujillo shot a few more antelope. They brought fencing and installed it at "strategic points" along the field. By March 22, Trujillo had shot 20 antelope, leaving some of them injured in the field where officers euthanized them. On March 24, an officer hazed antelope out of the field. Later that day, Trujillo shot 19 antelope.

Lewis "Butch" Whitton, a 47-year professional outfitter and hunter from Cimarron, was angered by Trujillo's actions.

"I'm not against hunting or killing animals, but I'm against wasting the animals and indiscriminately killing them," said Whitton by cell phone as he and his hound dogs tracked a mountain lion that had killed livestock close to a ranch house.

Private landowners who provide habitat for wildlife can apply for hunting authorizations from the state each year, that can be converted into licenses and sold. Those licenses are sold for several hundred to several thousand dollars. Trujillo received 15 authorizations for buck tags and one for doe last year, encompassing five hunting units over 14,000 acres, according to Ahlm.

A property owner who reports wildlife depredation and asks for help is supposed to, under the depredation law, provide evidence of how much the damage is worth compared to the amount of income the owner received off selling hunting licenses or other wildlife-related payments.

Ahlm said the department has asked Trujillo for the value of the damage done to his field by antelope and the total he's made off of game permits. "He's never provided that. We didn't force him to do so," Ahlm said. "We're trying not to draw a line in the sand. We would rather work with people, but they have to meet us halfway."

But Trujillo apparently isn't the only one the state hasn't required to show economic impact. According to depredation reports given state Game Commissioners for 2006 and the first half of 2007, the "total economic impacts to complainants is unknown at this time."

Contact Staci Matlock at 470-9843
or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.