Commentary: This Thursday, January 5, 7pm, at the Rio Grande Theater in Las Cruces, the Southwest Environmental Center is presenting a premiere screening of Unfair Game: Ending Wildlife Killing Contests, produced by California-based Project Coyote. The film offers a candid look at wildlife killing contests – unregulated, underground, but legal hunting competitions in which participants compete for cash prizes by killing as much unprotected wildlife as they can.
Unfair Game features interviews with scientists, ranchers, hunters, state officials, indigenous people, and wildlife advocates. After the film, stick around for a panel discussion and Q&A session, moderated by SWEC executive director Kevin Bixby and featuring Camilla Fox and Dave Parsons of Project Coyote, New Mexico State Senator-elect Jeff Steinborn, and Las Cruces conservationist and hunter David Soules, to learn more about our efforts to pass a bill in the upcoming legislative session to ban coyote killing contests in New Mexico.
We will also have petitions, postcards to mail to state officials, and other opportunities to get involved. If we are successful, New Mexico will be the first state in the country to ban these contests. Together, we can make history and send a message that New Mexico stands up for our wildlife.
The event is free and open to the public.