SANTA FE, N.M. — New Mexico is a wild state.

“New Mexico is the fourth most biodiverse state in the country,” said Judy Calman, New Mexico policy director for Audubon Southwest.

And there’s just one state agency in charge of managing all those wild animals, the Department of Game and Fish.

And while that department was largely created to oversee hunting and fishing throughout New Mexico, state lawmakers and advocates know there’s a much bigger job for them.

“Wildlife management is a rapidly changing business,” said Jesse Deubel, the executive director of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation. “We’re seeing drought like we’ve never seen before. We’re seeing catastrophic wildfire. We’ve got to have an agency that’s equipped to handle these kinds of challenges.”

And a bipartisan group of state lawmakers wants to deliver that with Senate Bill 5, a proposal reshaping the agency into the New Mexico Department of Wildlife.

“We want them to have the authority and the discretion to work on different wildlife species,” Rep. Matthew McQueen said. “We want to make sure our species do not become endangered, because once they become endangered, then all sorts of restrictions apply. So we want healthy populations so we can go about what we do, whether it’s industry, whether it’s agriculture, whether it’s tourism.”

But the department needs more money to do that, so the bill is also slightly increasing hunting and fishing license fees for the first time in nearly two decades.

“The agency’s funded by the sale of hunting and fishing license dollars and matching federal funds,” Deubel said. “So being that we haven’t seen an increase since 2006 you can imagine how starved the agency is for resources.”

State lawmakers are also trying to prevent political interference by reshaping the state game commissioner appointment process, ensuring qualified people fill those positions and establishing a formal removal process.

“The new structure is going to provide necessary insulation between politics and wildlife management,” Deubel said.

The proposal is now headed to the house floor for a vote, it’s second-to-last stop before reaching the Governor’s desk, and advocates are hopeful this is the year they finally get these changes across the finish line.

“The federal government probably isn’t going to do too much for wildlife in the next few years,” Calman said. “We want our state agency to really be robust so that we can take care of all that biodiversity here.”