The Colorado Sun reporting on efforts to end the trophy hunting of native mountain lions in our nature areas (“Effort to ban mountain lion hunting in Colorado heats up with state Supreme Court challenge and a second ballot measure”) is timely and relevant for many reasons.
This story landed as the winds of winter blew in yet another long season of killing lions for trophies. It’s the time many of us head out to hunt for that ultimate Christmas tree to shine warmly and brightly in our homes; it’s also the time when lion trophy hunters will sic dog packs on our wildlife, then shoot them as they try to find safety up a tree. The light that shines in cat eyes will be no more, as their heads are cut off, their hides stripped and brought indoors as wall-mounted trophies.
The body count is unwarranted: around 500 mountain lions will be lost in this indefensible, cruel and unsporting manner by year’s end, just as we are celebrating New Year’s Eve. Each life cut short is pure senseless destruction, and many of the female cats killed (204 of 502 killed last year were females) leave kittens behind to starve to death in their snowy dens waiting for a mom who will never come back.
This Sun story includes the image of a CPW researcher undergoing a 10-year study of lions in the Uncompahgre Forest, with a hypothesis poised on what percentage of lions can be killed as a “wildlife-related recreational opportunity,” without wiping them out. The published work was meticulous to never stray from stating the fact that lion hunting in Colorado is just a recreational opportunity. Period.
It’s similar to African trophy hunting, where guides are paid thousands of dollars to facilitate slaying a lion for a guaranteed head, hide and the obligatory photo.
According to a survey conducted in May by wildlife science researchers at Colorado State University, 80.6% of Coloradans oppose killing lions or bobcats for their hides or fur and 77.9% for trophies. When given the opportunity to address this obscure form of state-sanctioned cruelty, most say they will not tolerate it any longer. That’s why a citizens’ group — Cats Aren’t Trophies — is working to put a measure on the ballot to give Coloradans an opportunity to have a voice.
A generation ago, renowned Colorado Division of Wildlife bear biologist Tom Beck rightly said, “Most hunting can be ethically defended. Some cannot. Change, where necessary, is our only hope of survival.” This is why Colorado in 1992 overwhelmingly voted to outlaw spring bear hunts, using packs of dogs and at a time when cubs were being orphaned.
More than 1 million voters (69.70 percent) favored the ban on hounding and baiting of bears and orphaning cubs. A similar initiative should be on the ballot for lions, with the same set of hunting methods and orphaning back on the ballot.
There will be plenty of false assumptions over the next 11 months. The NRA, the Safari Club International and their proxies in Colorado will do everything and anything to keep voters from knowing the truth — a half-century of peer-reviewed literature on mountain lions unambiguously says that prophylactic or mass killing of unoffending lions will not make us humans any safer than we already are; it will not do anything positive for farm animals or pets, or for other wildlife. Visit the CATs Science Page to read the dozens of studies.
As a native Coloradan and a former public information officer for the Colorado Division of Wildlife, I was appalled to hear some lion trophy hunters and outfitters try to absurdly claim that they are environmental heroes, killing lions to save ecosystems and biodiversity.
But it is actually the mountain lions who are our heroes and they do it naturally. CPW biologists in a study show that mountain lions — not humans — are most efficient at keeping deer herds healthy from chronic wasting disease. It is fascinating to hear leading researchers explain that it is the lions who provide a significant solution to climate, as ecosystem engineers and maintain biodiversity among hundreds of diverse species. It is our lions who are keeping the balance among predators and prey, as basic biology tells us, and lions who have always been here, living among us peacefully, at least until trophy hunters violently disrupted the natural order of things and are now making us all less safe.
As we head into December, we will be far removed from the fear and loss that lions experience. But their pain and suffering is real. The CATs campaign reminds us of a moral opportunity before us. You have a chance to join us, signing or circulating a petition to qualify this ballot measure and then working with your neighbors and friends to bring relief to animals who just want to be left alone as nature intended.
Julie Marshall is national communications coordinator for Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Humane Economy based in Washington. She is a Colorado native, former opinion editor for the Boulder Daily Camera and worked as a public information officer for the Colorado Division of Wildlife in the 1990s.
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