Colorado trappers can no longer kill unlimited numbers of fur-bearing animals including mink, bobcat and coyote after the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission voted to limit them to two animals per species per day at its monthly meeting in Ignacio on Thursday.
The vote came after months of fighting between animal advocacy and pro-hunting groups, and the decision went against a recommendation by CPW staff and Director Laura Clellan, who had recommended a daily limit of four to 15 animals depending on species.
The new limit will affect a small number of hunters or trappers, as the vast majority of trappers take only a few animals each season, according to CPW.
While the commission took action to limit the number of fur-bearing animals hunters and trappers could bag, members did not ban the commercial sale of fur, voting to end discussions of a petition that had called on CPW to do so.
The basis for the commission’s decision to put limits on fur-bearer hunting and trapping grew out of discussions at its March meeting identifying the need to maintain what commissioners called social acceptance of the hunting and trapping of fur animals. Commissioners also wanted to prevent a small group of trappers and hunters from taking so many animals in a short period of time that it would affect other trappers, hunters or wildlife viewers from encountering fur-bearing animals in any specific habitat or geographic area.
Some commissioners were suspicious of CPW’s data on the total number of furbearers killed because there is currently no requirement for hunters or trappers to report how many animals they kill, except for bobcats.
CPW has done extensive research on fur-bearing species through population projections and fur harvester counts, and insists there is no biological need for bag limits. Rather, it’s a policy the public wants based on what’s socially acceptable, commissioners said.
Amendment 14, passed in 1996, banned the use of leghold traps, instant-kill body-gripping traps, snares and poisons for hunting and trapping, and substantially reduced the number of furbearers killed over the last 30 years in Colorado, despite the absence of bag limits, Clellan said.
At the meeting Thursday, CPW staff presented two alternatives to the previous regulation that allowed for unlimited trapping.
The first would have allowed for the taking of 15 animals per species per person per day, a limit presented to commissioners at their March meeting that they were “generally critical of,” Clellan said.
The second would have imposed different bag limits for species depending on whether they’re identified in state statutes as causing damage to crops, livestock and personal property.
Damage-causing species identified as badger, bobcat, beaver, coyote, muskrat, striped skunk, western spotted skunk, raccoon and red fox would have a bag limit of eight per species per person per day, while other species including mink, opossum, pine marten, ring-tailed cat, gray fox, swift fox, long-tailed weasel and short-tailed weasel would have a bag limit of four per species per person per day.
Rebecca Niemiec, co-director of the Animal Human Policy Center at Colorado State University and the commission’s new at-large member appointed in June, introduced a third option of two animals per day after questioning CPW staff about their justification for proposing limits of four and eight.
The goal of lowering limits was to “maintain social acceptance, to make sure people feel better about hunting and trapping furbearers and about our policy decisions,” she said, “but … what data do we have that the public feels better about the proposed bag limits?”
“This is a very important part of our profession, to have acceptance of wildlife management, and that’s why we’re here today,” Matt Eckert, CPW’s deputy assistant director, responded. “And we said in March and today that there is no biological justification for bag limits, that’s why we haven’t had them. But if we have a social reason to do so, then this is socially acceptable.”
Peter Maguire, a new commissioner representing hunters, cited a 1994 survey showing 61% of the public supported a ban on trapping at that time, “so there’s a precedent,” he said.
Ty Peterson, CPW’s chief of law enforcement, warned the commission prior to the vote that a bag limit of two would be “a very difficult task to enforce” given things like staffing and people trapping across the Colorado-Wyoming line.
Prior to the vote, Commissioner Frances Silva-Blayney wondered if the commission would put itself at legal risk by “veering off” of the recommendations from CPW staff in the rulemaking notice to the public.
“I think the lower the number, the greater the risk,” Jake Matter, CPW’s legal counsel, said.
“Yes” votes came from Commission Chair Jay Tutchton, commissioners Gabe Otero, Jessica Beaulieu, Rich Reading and new commissioners John Le Coq who represents agriculture producers, and Niemiec.
“No” votes came from Silva-Blayney, Tai Jacober, Dallas May, Jack Murphy and new commissioner Peter Maguire, who represents hunters.
Commission throws out ban on sale of wildlife fur
In yet another swerve from recommendations by CPW staff, the commission voted 6-5 Friday against a petition introduced at its March meeting asking for a ban on the commercial sales of fur of the same 17 species they set hunting and trapping limits for. The ban would have impacted all commercial sales except for fur used in pre-tied fishing flies, felt hats and fur sold for scientific research, education or for display in museums.
The petition, introduced by the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit organization that works to protect endangered species, was in the rulemaking stage, a formal process by which the commission creates, modifies or eliminates official regulations governing state parks, outdoor recreation, hunting, fishing and wildlife conservation.
CPW staff and Clellan gave the commission three alternatives to choose from after gathering input from the public and tribal consultations: keep CPW’s current regulatory framework without adopting any of the changes; prohibit the sale of fur products with several exceptions; or prohibit the sale of raw pelts with exceptions.
But after another lengthy debate, some commissioners said they weren’t comfortable with the exceptions in options two or three and wanted time to learn more.
Tutchton, who supported a ban, said “it is impossible to find a situation anywhere on Earth where, if you turn dead wildlife into a commodity, you don’t have exploitation that eventually destroys that resource.”
Niemiec pushed for a vote on the options that included bans. Keeping the status quo, she said, would basically be “ignoring the public … who doesn’t want to see commercial sale of our wildlife,” without considering “exempt uses that still allow for use of furs in important ways.”
But Commissioner Dallas May said CPW had done a survey in April showing 57% of the public did not support a fur ban, and other commissioners agreed the ban was “creating a problem where there wasn’t one.”
So May motioned for the commission to terminate the rulemaking process, which essentially canceled the possibility of a fur ban.
“Yes” votes came from May, Jacober, Murphy, Otero, Maguire and Silva-Blayney.
“No” votes came from Tutchon, Reading, Beaulieu, Le Coq and Niemiec.