Cougar hunting ban to be introduced in Colorado in November

Colorado voters will have the chance to ban mountain lion hunting in November.

Colorado’s Secretary of State confirmed Wednesday that the campaign to end cougar hunting in Colorado had gathered enough signatures to put Proposition 91 on the November ballot. The initiative asks voters to declare that “all hunting of cougars, bobcats or lynx is inhumane, serves no socially acceptable or ecologically beneficial purpose, and does not contribute to public safety.” The measure would ban shooting or trapping feral cats but would allow the killing of feral cats that threaten livestock or people.

Representatives of the group Los Gatos No Son Trofeos presented 147,529 valid signatures, more than the 124,238 required to access the ballot.

Samantha Miller, manager of the Cats Are Not Trophies campaign, said the organization has 900 volunteers who will now shift from collecting signatures to outreach and advertising.

“Our message remains the same: Coloradans know that the cruel and inhumane trophy hunting and fur trapping of Colorado’s wild cats has no place in our state, and many of them have been outraged to learn that this practice continues despite measures in the 1990s that stopped paw trapping, black bear stalking and spring bear hunting,” Miller said in an email.

The group Cats Aren’t Trophies has raised $414,000 since the beginning of the year (the largest contributor, Washington, D.C.-based Animal Wellness Action, gave $147,000) and spent $335,000, according to the group’s Aug. 1 filing with the Colorado Secretary of State.

California is the only US state where voters have banned mountain lion hunting.

The last time voters weighed wildlife issues was in 2020, when a narrow margin of Coloradans demanded that the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Department reintroduce wolves to the Western Slope. Before that, in 1992, voters approved a constitutional amendment limiting black bear hunting, and in 1996 they approved an amendment banning paw-lock and instant-kill traps.

Hunting advocates challenged the ballot initiative last year, arguing that the measure’s wording was misleading and that the state’s Deeds Board erred in approving it for signature collection. In January, the Colorado Supreme Court rejected the challenge and upheld the Deeds Board’s decision.

Two years ago, animal conservation groups supported legislation that would have banned the killing of mountain lions and bobcats in Colorado. Hunting groups opposed the bill and inundated lawmakers with statements of opposition. The bill’s primary sponsors withdrew their support before the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources committee rejected the legislation in February 2022.

CPW has managed lion hunting since 1965

Colorado Parks and Wildlife estimates there are between 3,800 and 4,400 cougars in the state. The agency has controlled lion hunting for decades with annual limits on how many of the cats hunters can kill. In 1980, hunters harvested 81 cougars. In the 2022-23 lion season, 2,599 hunters spent 1,635 days hunting lions and killed 502 animals, including 298 males and 204 females. That was below the agency’s annual limit, which is updated daily during lion hunting seasons. Colorado Parks and Wildlife requires hunters to take an online class and exam before obtaining a license to hunt cougars.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife rarely takes sides on political issues, and the agency did not take a position on Initiative 91. But the agency supports cougar hunting as a tool to manage populations.

“For many people, hunting is a continuation of hunter-gatherer traditions and a way to connect with nature. It also helps maintain a healthy wildlife population,” reads a statement on the agency’s website. “There is no evidence that controlled hunting has caused the extinction of any species in Colorado, nor that well-regulated hunting has negatively affected the stability of the state’s cougar population.”

This year, the agency held public meetings to update its lion management plan on the Front Range, where cougar habitat development is increasing human-lion interactions. The Front Range management plan, which was last updated in the mid-2000s, reflects 2020 updates to the West Slope Cougar Management Plan.

In January, Colorado Parks and Wildlife commissioners shortened the 2023-24 lion hunting season (which normally runs from December through March with a second season in April) by eliminating the April season. Commissioners also voted to prevent hunters from using electronic calls to attract lions in the two hunting areas on the Western Slope where calls were permitted.

The changes came after animal rights activists reported a slightly higher than average number of cats killed in the early part of the season.

Hunting groups and others who support the Colorado Wildlife Conservation Project have worked against the hunting ban, arguing that voter initiatives can bypass management by the state’s wildlife biologists. The groups note that Colorado has had healthy cougar populations since 1965, when the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Department began managing bobcats as big game.

Opponents of Prop 91 will continue an educational campaign “to let the conservation-minded general public know why mountain lion hunting is important and why this hunting ban is detrimental to science-based management in Colorado,” said Bryan Jones of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers.

“We will certainly be talking about wildlife protection initiatives that are on the ballot and how they can be detrimental to wildlife management in Colorado,” said Jones, who hopes the opposition campaign will include the challenges that arose after the introduction of wolves to the Western Slope this year. “We see that there have been issues and mistakes that have put people at odds with Colorado Parks and Wildlife and we don’t want to see that again.”