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Selected Articles from our
newsletter
The C.A.S.H. Courier
ARTICLE from the Fall 2008 Issue
What We've Been Up To - Part 2
By Joe Miele
In November 2007 New Mexico Game and Fish Director Bruce Thompson did a very
stupid thing – he shot a deer on a ranch west of Roswell. Shooting deer on a
ranch in New Mexico is generally not something that would raise an eyebrow
in this state. But the way Thompson did it, and the furor that was raised
following the shooting cost him his job.
Though he believed that he was on public property overseen by the Bureau of
Land Management, Thompson was actually on private property operated as the
Diamond T Ranch. Additionally, he was hunting without permission from the
landowner. In the state of New Mexico and throughout the country it is
illegal to hunt on private property without first securing permission. Did
Thompson simply make an absent minded mistake, or was he exercising extreme
arrogance because he believed himself to be above the law due to the
position he held? Whatever the reason, the facts remain that he hunted
illegally on private property.
Upon learning of the above story, C.A.S.H. sprang into action. C.A.S.H.
contacted New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and each member of the New
Mexico State Game Commission, and demanded that Bruce Thompson be terminated
from his position as the state’s head wildlife killer. It is not often that
C.A.S.H. is on the same side of an issue as a board that is in charge of
setting hunting seasons, but sometimes when wildlife laws are breached,
strange temporary alliances can be made.
Then on November 5, two days after C.A.S.H. had a letter published in the
Las Cruces Sun News (the newspaper serving New Mexico’s second-largest
city), Game and Fish director, Bruce Thompson, resigned his position in
disgrace. Governor Richardson quickly moved to appoint a new Game and Fish
director, and Thompson’s last day on the job was November 14.
Our next effort has to be directed against Gov. Bill Richardson’s hunting.
As previously reported Gov. Bill Richardson is an avid hunter of big &
exotic game.
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