It's not bad draw odds for NM residents. The state population is low and essentially 90% of the tags in the draw go to residents. All cow tags, and WMA tags are resident only in draw.
Residents can also choose to put in for the outfitter pool (open to everyone) if they wanted and can also buy an EPLUS tags as well.
You can hunt elk every year in NM if you really want. Which is what's great about the NM systems.
A little work with learning the draw numbers and how to stack your 1st to 3rd choice and you have a decent chance, even in the draw only, as a resident.
New Mexico’s tag allocation is opaque and it is difficult to grasp the whole picture. So I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you don’t understand the system and are not putting lipstick on a pig. But here is the complete story and statistics.
Thirty-eight percent of all elk tags in New Mexico are private transferable tags. Another 4% are privatized as outfitter draw set asides. That is 42% of all NM elk tags that are privatized. It is disingenuous to insinuate that residents buying tags for the public elk resource from a landowner is “opportunity”. The only people that can hunt elk every year in New Mexico are the rich. Nonresident or resident. That violates the most basic elements of both the public trust doctrine and the North American Model. Seventy-one percent (7 out of 10) of NM resident elk applicants did not draw last year. The percentage of NM residents that do not draw elk goes up almost every year. Around 50,000 residents every year. There are almost 14,000 elk private landowner licenses and 75% of these (83% of bull and 56% of cow) are bought by nonresidents because 99.4% of the U.S. population is not New Mexican. Draw cow tags are resident only but even the majority of the private cow tags are bought by nonresidents.
You mention that elk WMA and cow draw hunts are resident only. But privatization is so rampant in New Mexico that even for these resident only tags, 10% are set aside for outfitters so a resident has to pay an outfitter for 10% of the resident only state WMA and resident only cow hunts statewide. New Mexicans have to pay an outfitter for 10% of the elk tags to hunt the NM public’s elk on their own state land WMA.
The outcome of NM privatization through landowner tags and the outfitter draw set aside is that in NM only 55% of all elk tags are acquired by a NM resident by public draw (there are no OTC public tags in NM, but of course there are unlimited private land OTC elk tags available in much of NM) without paying a private individual, an outfitter or landowner, to obtain the tag. In AZ and NV 92% and 89% respectively of all elk tags are obtained by residents by public draw. In UT 93% of all elk tags are obtained by UT residents by draw or OTC. Backing out the UT OTC and only considering everything else (public draw, private landowner, EXPO, conservation auction elk tags 83% are obtained by public draw by UT residents. 55% NM vs 93% UT, 92% AZ, 89% NV. New Mexico is not the land of resident elk opportunity nirvana that you portray. Far from it.
UT and NV both have transferable private landowner elk tags. But in both of these states they represent less than 3% of the elk tags. And in both states direct public benefit must be provided by the landowner in return for the private privilege of the grant of a public resource. In NV landowners must allow public elk hunting access to landlocked and adjacent public land. In UT between 10% and 20% (depending on the property) of the private land tags must be placed in the public draw for UT residents. In NM there are no such public benefit requirements for private tag privilege. They are just no strings attached private grants of the public elk resource. And they crush both resident and nonresident public elk hunting opportunity.
