Ballot Measure to Ban Lion Hunting Divides Colorado

Colorado residents will have a new issue to vote on this November: whether to continue to allow the hunting of mountain lions and bobcats.

All hunting of these feline predators would end under a petition filed in Colorado this week by animal rights group Cats Aren’t Trophies. The group has already collected 188,000 signatures — 60,000 more than necessary to get the proposal on the state’s November ballot. State officials approved the petition Wednesday, ensuring that Initiative 91 will come to a vote.

That has created a widening rift among Colorado residents. On one side, animal rights activists call hunting of lions and bobcats a “cruel, unjustifiable” practice. They said Colorado’s state-managed hunting program results in the “needless killing of mountain lions and bobcats for their heads and beautiful fur coats.”

Opponents, on the other hand, claim that Cats Aren’t Trophies has invented a problem that didn’t exist. They say a hunting ban on the state’s wild cats wouldn’t just impact longtime hunters — it’s also a threat to effective wildlife management. They also note that it is already illegal — indeed a felony offense — to kill mountain lions or bobcats for only their fur and head. Their meat legally must be collected.

As for Colorado’s wildlife officials, they’re stuck in the middle. Colorado Parks & Wildlife (CPW) says its hunting plan has proven effective in managing animal populations. But if voters pass the measure this November, they have no choice.

“We take no position for or against it,” said CPW spokesperson Bridget O’Rourke. “We will implement anything passed by the voters and the legislature.”

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Science or Emotion?

It’s not the first time that Colorado voters have decided to change the state’s wildlife management policy. An initiative to reintroduce gray wolves passed in 2020, and the first animals were let loose last year. State officials worried the new predators would further impact the state’s elk population, and some reports suggest it’s already happening.

Making decisions about how to manage wildlife — from gray wolves to mountain lions — should be based on science, not emotion, said Bryan Jones, Colorado Chapter Coordinator for Backcountry Hunters and Anglers.

“It’s an emotional issue and the folks that are leading it are playing to those emotions,” he said. “It totally goes against science-based management and has quite a bit of misinformation.”

There are several examples of this in the messaging of Cats Aren’t Trophies, Jones said. For example, Initiative 91 would ban the hunting of lynxes, as well as lions and bobcats. But it’s already illegal to hunt lynxes anywhere in the U.S., where they are federally protected.

Mountain lion and bobcat populations remain healthy, according to state officials, and have steadily increased since the 1990s — even as Colorado continued a limited annual hunting program.

Cats Aren’t Trophies contends otherwise. The group points to supporters who are wildlife biologists, veterinarians, or even hunters, arguing that any hunting of the cats is damaging to the environment.

“Indiscriminate killing of predators who are not causing any problems is unwarranted and destabilizes the peaceful coexistence between humans, domestic animals and predators,” the group says on the website.

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Activists: Trophy Hunting ‘Not a Good Look’

In Colorado, it’s illegal to kill a mountain lion without using the meat.

“There are hundreds of recipes and hundreds of hunters that make amazing meals out of these animals,” Jones said.

Again, Cats Aren’t Trophies says otherwise.

“Anyone who says they recreationally hunt mountain lions or bobcats to fill their freezer and feed a family is being disingenuous. It is not normal behavior to eat a cat,” the group’s campaign manager, Sam Miller, told GearJunkie. “When someone says they’re eating cats, they are attempting to justify a behavior the public finds unacceptable. It is merely an excuse to kill mountain lions and bobcats for trophies.” 

The term “trophy hunting” looms large in the group’s argument. They sent GearJunkie many examples of hunters using the term for mountain lions killed in the state.

Colorado does allow mountain lion hunters to use dogs. Electronic predator calls are allowed when dealing with “conflict lions” near residential area, according to a 2020 state management plan.

However, even Cats Aren’t Trophies acknowledges that some animals will still need to be killed. The language of Initiative 91 allows for the “lethal removal” of lions when they pose a danger to humans.

So, Colorado will still have to manage the animals — but without the funding that comes from selling hunting licenses. Colorado wildlife officials said that money supports conservation efforts throughout the state.

A Fine Line Between Hunting and Conservation

If Colorado voters approve Initiative 91 this fall, it’s hard to predict what will happen to the state’s wildlife.

California, for example, banned the hunting of mountain lions in 1990. But it left an exception for cats that attack livestock. That has led to more mountain lions killed each year than before the ban was enacted, according to a 2017 investigation by The Sacramento Bee. Animal rights groups are now pressuring the governor to take further action to protect the state’s big cats.

Utah officials went the other direction. Last year, the legislature approved the year-round hunting of mountain lions. In 2022, the state’s Division of Wildlife Resources offered nearly 4,000 cougar hunting permits — twice the animal’s estimated population.

In Colorado, officials limit mountain lion harvests to 17% of the species populations in a given region. The cap for mountain lion harvests is changed every year, with the 2023-24 hunting season cap at 674 animals. In 2023, hunters harvested 486 lions.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife requires hunters to report each lion they kill within 48 hours. After that, the hunter has 5 days to present each lion at a CPW office for an inspection. There’s also an official seal that allows the hunter to keep the hide. 

But no amount of regulation makes hunting mountain lions acceptable, according to the Mountain Lion Foundation, which supports Initiative 91.

“Some people claim that without hunting mountain lions, they will overpopulate, decimate deer herds, and lose their fear of people,” wrote Paige Munson, the organization’s science and policy coordinator. “Every piece of evidence we have indicates that mountain lion populations are limited by habitat and food availability requiring no levels of hunting. Remember, cougars didn’t evolve to be hunted. “