Colorado voters will get a chance to ban mountain lion hunting in November.
The Colorado Secretary of State on Wednesday confirmed that the campaign to end mountain lion hunting in Colorado had gathered enough signatures to get Proposition 91 on the November ballot. The initiative asks voters to declare that “any trophy hunting of mountain lions, bobcats or lynx is inhumane, serves no socially acceptable or ecologically beneficial purpose, and fails to further public safety.” The measure would ban any shooting or trapping of wildcats but allows killing cats that are threatening livestock or people.
Representatives with the Cats Aren’t Trophies group submitted 147,529 valid signatures, more than the 124,238 that were required for ballot access.
Samantha Miller, the manager for the Cats Aren’t Trophies campaign, said the organization has 900 volunteers who will now transition from signature gathering to outreach and advertising.
“Our message remains, 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 this practice continues despite measures in the ’90s that stopped leg-hold traps, hounding of black bears and spring bear hunting,” Miller said in an email.
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The Cats Aren’t Trophies group has raised $414,000 since the beginning of the year — with the largest contributor, Washington D.C.-based Animal Wellness Action, providing $147,000 — and spent $335,000, according to the group’s Aug. 1 filing with the Colorado Secretary of State.
California is the only state in the U.S. where voters have banned mountain lion hunting.
The last time voters weighed wildlife issues was in 2020, when a narrow margin of Coloradans required Colorado Parks and Wildlife to reintroduce wolves on the Western Slope. Before that, voters in 1992 approved a constitutional amendment that limited black bear hunting, and in 1996 voters approved an amendment that banned leg hold and instant-kill traps.
Hunting advocates challenged the ballot initiative last year, arguing the wording of the measure was misleading and the state’s Title Board erred when approving it for signature gathering. The Colorado Supreme Court in January denied the challenge and affirmed the Title 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 flooded lawmakers with opposition statements. The bill’s top sponsors pulled 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 mountain lions in the state. The agency has managed lion hunting for decades with annual caps on how many cats hunters can kill. In 1980, hunters took 81 mountain lions. 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 annual limit set by the agency, which is updated daily during lion hunting seasons. Colorado Parks and Wildlife requires hunters to take an online class and exam before securing a license to hunt mountain lions.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife rarely takes a side in political issues and the agency did not take a position on Initiative 91. But the agency supports mountain lion hunting as a tool for managing populations.
“For many people, hunting is a continuation of the hunter-gatherer traditions and a way to connect to nature. It also helps maintain healthy wild animal population,” reads a statement on the agency’s website. “There is no evidence of managed hunting leading to the extinction of any species in Colorado, or of well-regulated hunting negatively affecting the population stability of the state’s mountain lions.”
The agency this year held public meetings to update its management plan for lions on the Front Range, where development into mountain lion habitat is increasing human-lion interactions. The Front Range management plan — which was last updated in the mid-2000s — mirrors 2020 updates to the West Slope Mountain Lion Management Plan.
In January, Colorado Parks and Wildlife commissioners cut the 2023-24 lion hunting season — which typically 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 lure lions in the two hunting areas on the Western Slope where calls were allowed.
The changes came as animal advocates decried a slightly higher-than-average number of female cats killed in the early portion of the season.
Hunting groups and others behind the Colorado Wildlife Conservation Project have worked against the hunting ban, arguing that voter initiatives can sidestep management by state wildlife biologists. The groups point to healthy mountain lion populations in Colorado since 1965, when Colorado Parks and Wildlife began managing wildcats as big game.
Opponents of Proposition 91 will continue an educational campaign “to let the conservation-minded public at large know why mountain lion hunting is important and what this hunting ban is bad for science-based management in Colorado,” said Bryan Jones with Backcountry Hunters and Anglers.
“We will certainly talk about ballot-box wildlife initiatives and how they can be a negative for wildlife management in Colorado,” said Jones, who expects the opposition campaign will include the challenges that followed the introduction of wolves to the Western Slope this year. “We can see there have been problems and mistakes that have put folks at odds with Colorado Parks and Wildlife and we don’t want to see that again.”