Latest Updates on Hunt The West Subscribe

Updates

Home > Updates > New Mexico Game and Fish Director Resigns After Trespassing

New Mexico Game and Fish Director Resigns After Trespassing

November 17, 2008.

The embattled head of the New Mexico Game and Fish Department has turned in his resignation, just a month after the state Game Commission revoked his hunting license for illegally killing a deer and conservation officers called for him to step down.

The Game Commission voted Oct. 2 to revoke Bruce Thompson's hunting privileges in New Mexico and more than two dozen other states for illegally shooting a deer on the Diamond T Ranch during a 2007 hunt.

Thompson, who had a valid deer hunting license, said he believed he was on U.S. Bureau of Land Management land, based on coordinates entered in his global positioning system unit.

Thompson took responsibility, but members of the New Mexico Conservation Officers Association claimed the director's handling of the incident gave the department a bad name.

Thompson's last day as game director was Nov. 14. He will start a new job Nov. 17 with the state Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department as the coordinator for Land Conservation, Habitat Corridors and Wildlife Adaptation.