WESTMINSTER — An out-of-state animal rights group has cleared a key hurdle in its push for a potential ban on commercial fur sales in Colorado after the Parks and Wildlife Commission this week voted to accept their petition.
In what critics are calling a blow to science-based wildlife management, the commission voted 6-4 Wednesday to advance the Center for Biological Diversity’s petition to ban all commercial sales of the furbearing species, with the exception of fur in pre-tied fishing flies, felt hats that incorporate fur and fur sold for scientific research, education or display in museums.
Although CPW staff and Director Laura Clellan recommended the petition be denied, the commission is the ultimate decision-maker. Now that the petition has been accepted, CPW staff will draft rules along with regulations outlining proposed exceptions to the ban.
Clellan said Wednesday’s vote does not mean the entirety of the petition is approved. Next up will be further debate over the scope of the rules at a future meeting.
While the vote happened on day one of the two-day CPW commission meeting that started Wednesday, rancor continued Thursday, as members of the public and even some on the commission questioned the process that resulted in the petition’s approval.
“Yes” votes came from Commission Chair Rich Reading and commissioners Jessica Beaulieu, John Emerick, Jay Tutchton, Jack Murphy and Eden Vardy.
“No” votes came from Gabe Otero, Dallas May, Tai Jacober and Frances Silva Blayney.
Animal activists are celebrating the commission’s action as a win, saying it gives furbearing animals the same protections as game animals like elk, deer and antelope. Currently, the sale of these species’ meat on the commercial market — though not their hides or antlers — is illegal, but the furs of trapped and killed beavers, ringtails, red foxes, pine martens, bobcats, coyotes and eight other species can be sold in unlimited numbers.
The petition does not ask for furbearer trapping to end.
Samantha Miller, who spearheaded the petition for the Center for Biological Diversity, said “it’s great to see Colorado Parks and Wildlife leadership affirm that commercial markets have no place in science-based wildlife management. By approving our petition to end the sale of pelts from Colorado’s furbearing wildlife, the commission took a major step toward ensuring cherished animals like swift foxes and rare ringtails are managed for conservation, not profit.”
But many opponents are calling the way the commission came to the vote — before a crowd that topped 400 at the DoubleTree hotel in Westminster — a “show of incompetence” so confusing they can’t understand what happened, and an erosion of trust that’s been building at least since the start of wolf reintroduction.
“Never a more dysfunctional meeting”
Dean Riggs, a retired game warden from Loma with more than 30 years of agency experience, said he has “never seen a more dysfunctional running of a meeting” and what he witnessed was “incredibly out of control.”
Discussion of the petition Wednesday wrapped around a long conversation focused on a separate recommendation to put bag limits on furbearer harvest, which muddied the issue, said Riggs and May, the commissioner and rancher from Lamar representing agriculture.
The conversation on bag limits followed a presentation by Mark Vieira, CPW’s carnivore and furbearer program manager. It focused on populations, allowable harvest numbers, harvest rates and impacts to several furbearers, along with recommendations on how to manage them based on several months of debate within a furbearer working group including diverse stakeholders.
Vieira’s numbers reflected modeling based on peer-reviewed scientific papers, because CPW at present requires trappers and hunters to report only bobcat kills. Currently, Colorado allows unlimited killing of the state’s 17 furbearers. The Center for Biological Diversity says the lack of reporting requirements for the 16 other species makes it impossible to determine how many animals are killed annually.
But one of the recommendations in CPW’s proposed management plan is to limit harvest to 15 furbearers per day total.
That is an arbitrary number based on faulty science, say critics such as Delia Malone, an ecologist who serves on the board of directors for ColoradoWild, a nonprofit conservation group.
The information Vieira provided on which he based his occupancy model, which measures abundance and distribution of a species, was “opinion” and “not based in science, rather on anecdotal survey info from 45% of trappers,” Malone added in an email Thursday to The Colorado Sun.
The topic launched several commissioners into a conversation about reducing bag limits to two per day per species. Some said the importance of doing so was for “social” reasons — to manage public perception — how people feel about the numbers.
Tutchton, the vice chair and representative for recreation, parks and nonconsumptive wildlife, from Centennial, remained “stuck” on the topic of bag limits for a long time.
“I’m wondering if someone who’s been around could tell us, how did we come up with a bag limit and a possession limit for, let’s say, squirrels or cottontails,” he said. “Because I see the same problems there, although there’s probably no biological reason to have those bag limits and possession limits.”
But Jacober, a rancher from Pitkin County representing agriculture producers, said the commission should continue to rely on the expertise of its biologists, who’ve been managing wildlife since 1877. “I can’t help but go back to the science and the staff and the biologists that are out there doing this work telling us that this harvest is not affecting the populations,” he said.
“I’ve listened, and I’ve read 1,000 emails like all of you, and I just have to go back to the people that are out there studying and trust what they’re saying.”
Already May had said “with all due respect for my fellow commissioners … I think this discussion is going to direct how they feel about the (furbearer petition).” But after another ranging conversation that dug into statutes and previous ballot outcomes and why there is a bag limit on rabbits, Beaulieu, a lawyer who manages the University of Denver’s Animal Law Program and parks and recreation, made a motion.
Much confusion ensued around exactly what the commission was voting for.
Beaulieu said she wanted to approve the “spirit of the petition” and move onto rulemaking “with exceptions.”
Vardy still didn’t understand.
Tutchton said he was against commerce of wildlife.
Reading seconded the motion to vote for the petition.
And May said he couldn’t with conscience vote for it without knowing the exceptions.
More pushback on day 2
Thursday’s meeting included a discussion about the confusion Wednesday. May asked for clarification on what they had voted on so people don’t show up to later meetings and are surprised by what will be presented.
Reading excused the commission for a discussion behind closed doors.
When they reconvened, Reading played a clip of Beaulieu’s motion, “which was then seconded,” he added. Then he opened the meeting up to public comment.
Fewer people had signed up than on Wednesday.
Jacci McKenna, who identifies herself as a “private citizen,” thanked the commission for the courage they displayed in taking into account that there is “no sufficient data that CPW has access to to be making the decisions they are making with respect to bag limits and other things.”
Mark Surls, Colorado state coordinator at Project Coyote, said “seasons should be part of the discussion when going through this conversation, and all 17 species should have their seasons revisited, especially coyotes, seeing that they are year round.”
Marie Haskett, a rancher and former commissioner from Meeker, said “wow. That’s the only word I can think of to say about yesterday.”
“It was also embarrassing today. You added to confusion around the motion, so you go behind closed doors to figure out what happened. Where’s the transparency?”
And many others shared the views of Han Smith, owner of the Rusty Spurr Ranch in Kremmling.
“I’ve seen better demonstrations of parliamentary procedure and objectivity in the average 4-H meeting,” he said. “Your actions and behavior yesterday did more to destroy trust than any single action in the history of the CPW or this commission.”