What Colorado’s Prop 127 not passing means for us
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We have many things to be thankful for this year.
Colorado’s Proposition 127 failed by a vote of 55.5% to 45.5%. I touched on the national significance of this ballot initiative a few weeks ago. Since 1992 every other wildlife related ballot initiative in Colorado passed and we felt it here in Wisconsin.
Starting with Amendment 10 in 1992, banning the hunting of black bear with dogs or bait in Colorado. That led to Colorado’s ban on using leg-hold and “instant-kill traps” in 1996.
A few years later, a Wisconsin state senator introduced legislation to ban the hunting of black bears with dogs in Wisconsin. Successful tactics in anti-hunting incubation states find their way to Wisconsin.
Colorado’s Parks and Wildlife (CPW) Commissioners, appointed by the state’s governor, currently stacked with members who don’t support hunting, eliminated the Colorado April Mountain lion season earlier this year.
The anti’s raised $2.8 million to wage this campaign, much of those dollars coming from DC based organizations.
The people leading the fight against the anti’s managed to scrape up $1.9 million and only a smidgeon of that came from D.C. Most of that came from individual hunters from Colorado and throughout the U.S. Outspent by almost a million dollars, in a state that clearly voted blue, who elected an anti-hunting governor, and lost every single ballot initiative seeking to eliminate hunting previously. They landed hunting a huge victory by telling our story and winning the support of the nonhunting public – I’m thankful for that.
Previous to this ballot initiative, the anti’s attempted to eliminate mountain lion hunting in 2022 by a bill in the Colorado State Legislature. In 2019 they floated a petition to ban bobcat hunting to the CPW Commission that failed.
In 1965 the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Agency started issuing harvest tags for mountain lion essentially classifying them and managing them like other big game animals. When they did this, the estimated population of mountain lions in Colorado sat in the 120’s. Today that population sits at 3,800 – 4,400 mountain lions. Each of the last three years hunters harvested 500 mountain lions and greater than 800 bobcats. I call that an exceptional track record on species management that exemplifies the North American Model of Conservation. And the previous two seasons Colorado license sales for mountain lions generated over $400,000 per year. Compare that to California now paying wildlife control personnel to kill 200 mountain lions a year.
CPW currently manages 960 species of wildlife. Proposition 127 sought to eliminate their management of mountain lions. It sought to continue down the road of ballot box biology instead of sound science based biology.
Science might not always hit the nail squarely on the head, but new research creates better management policies if common sense prevails. A population increase from 120 animals to above 3,800 and holding steady - that looks like the nail got hit squarely. The propped up anti-hunting group called Cats Aren’t Trophies created proposition 127 and pushed a narrative that this represented cruel and inhumane trophy hunting. It sought to make “trophy hunting” a criminal event. They falsely set out propaganda that hunters kill lions and bobcats purely for taxidermy mounts. Yet CPW rules clearly state that “edible parts of lions must be prepared for human consumption.” If you talk to someone who hunted lions, they often talk about consuming the meat. Utilizing the skin in a taxidermy mount simply honors the animal, provides a remembrance of a good day to the hunter, and allows others to witness the color, size, and beauty of the animal for years to come.
The anti-hunting group started to reframe the decisive defeat of Proposition 127 the day after the election. They attempted to twist the rhetoric saying the defeat really constituted a vote against ballot box biology – cute. They stated that it didn’t ratify hunting or trapping of lions and bobcats. They called upon the CPW Commission to end the hunting of mountain lions with hounds and trapping. They clearly seek to maintain Colorado as an incubator state of anti-hunting.
Hunting won this battle, wildlife lost - $1.9 million dollars taken from habitat work, research, and preserving wild places. If the anti’s truly cared about wildlife they would have allocated the $2.8 they spent on wildlife projects instead of politicking ballot initiatives hoping to legislate their version of morality.
Happy Thanksgiving to all and good luck on this second weekend of the gun deer season and please remember, Safe Hunting is No Accident!
CHUCK BY
K OLAR THROUGH A
LOCAL OUTDOORSMAN
