Coloradans love to hunt and fish — it puts meat in the freezer, helps sustain healthy wildlife populations, and this outdoor recreation tradition has been passed down for generations.
Our appreciation for hunting and angling, however, does not mean the right to hunt and fish should be ingrained in the Colorado Constitution.
Because hunting is also the most regulated recreational activity in this state – for very good reason. Overhunting can have dire consequences to entire ecosystems, as can underhunting. We want our wildlife – which is held in trust by the state of Colorado for the benefit of the people — to be managed carefully with both respect for the animals and respect for the hunters.
Anything that could interfere with the ability of Colorado Parks and Wildlife to manage our animal populations risks the future of hunting and fishing for everyone else.
We urge voters to say no on Amendment 83.
The ballot language does specifically allow the state to regulate hunting and fishing. But the language also requires officials to prove their decisions are based on sound scientific reasons, public safety, or to preserve future hunting and fishing opportunities.
This amendment is a lawsuit waiting to happen every time CPW officials make a decision that the hunting community disagrees with.
We don’t have to look too hard to find an example. In 2024, animal rights groups attempted to ban mountain lion, bobcat, and lynx hunting in Colorado with a ballot measure. The Denver Post Editorial Board opposed that measure in large part because we trust biologists and other experts working in the Department of Natural Resources to regulate and monitor hunting of this state’s wild cat and lion population.
One thing that the ballot measure highlighted was the lack of any sort of limit to the number of lynx, bobcats and other fur-bearing animals that could be trapped in a single day. There wasn’t even good data about how many were currently being hunted because CPW only required trappers to report their bobcat numbers. It became evident that the state needed to get a handle on whether these small cats were being overharvested.
This summer the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission voted to impose limits for the first time on the hunting and trapping of furbearer animals. Trappers can now take two animals per species per day during trapping season.
Staff from CPW urged the board to either not limit the hunting of these animals or to limit it to between four and 15 animals per day depending on the species. CPW staff said populations of these animals remain strong and healthy and that a limit was not needed.
The board set a lower limit based on what some members expressed as a need to make trapping more socially acceptable.
We fear that this constitutional amendment would make it more difficult for CPW to take actions like setting limits on how many lynx someone can trap in a day or year without also then having to prove in court it was based on “sound scientific reasons.” The board based its decision not on the population numbers of these animals but on the optics of having a completely unmonitored and unregulated free-for-all system of taking wild animals from public and private lands.
CPW’s board should have the power to make these decisions.
Other decisions that might be sound but not based on science include regulations requiring that hunts adhere to the principles of fair chase and sporting chance. Our hunters are skilled and don’t need to bait elk and deer to get a kill. In fact, one of the more absurd things that has made it into our Constitution is the ban on certain types of traps that Coloradans deemed inhumane.
We agree that hunting and trapping should be as humane as possible. Still, this particular ban didn’t need to go in the Constitution – a simple law would have sufficed or, better yet, allowing the CPW board to determine if these traps were too inhumane to allow. Any such regulations will become very difficult under this constitutional amendmentap requirements, and if hunters start using AI-powered drones to find their targets, it may require a constitutional amendment to ban the practice.
One of the things that we also discovered in our opposition to the mountain lion hunting ban was that determining the populations of some animals is difficult. CPW does not have the resources or the technology to know with 100% certainty how many mountain lions, bobcats or lynx there are in a specific hunting unit. Sometimes CPW is making its best decisions based on what data it has, not based on absolute scientific certainty.
To date, Colorado has struck a good balance between being liberal with its hunting permits and allotments and protecting populations.
The wildlife in Colorado belongs to all of us, and the state is responsible for holding it in trust for the benefit of hunters and non-hunters alike. Tying the hands of CPW would be a grave mistake.
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