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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T

SPONSOR Komadina, Steve

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

1/23/06

HB

SHORT TITLE

SM 2

ANALYST Earnest

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY06

FY07

NFI

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Department of Game and Fish (DGF)

Tourism Department (TD)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

Senate Memorial 2 requests that the federal government look at improving management of wild

horse herds and developing tourism programs at national wild horse territories. The memorial

resolves that the Federal government should endeavor to maintain a minimum herd size and use

contraception rather than selling excess animals as a means of herd size management. It further

resolves that helicopters not be used to round up wild horses.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

None.

PERFORMANCE IMPLICATIONS

The Tourism Department supports activities and programs that result in increasing the number of

tourists visiting New Mexico, a key performance measure for NMTD.

Senate Memorials 2 – Page 2

TECHNICAL ISSUES

According to the Department of Game and Fish, management of wild horses has some possibility

of conflicting with wildlife management. Eliminating round up of wild horses with helicopters

helps alleviate concerns of disturbance to wildlife species, especially ungulate species during

calving or fawning seasons. Depending on the location of the wild horse territories and the

number of horses in each herd, there is a possibility of competition for habitat between wild

horses and native ungulate species. Also, contraception methods need to be species specific to

wild horses to avoid the risk of affecting non-target wildlife species.

BE/mt