As it fought crime, the “Precrime” force didn’t need evidence. It arrested suspects before they committed a crime. But the Precrime system, immortalized in the 2002 film “Minority Report,” had a flaw: The people who predicted future crime were sometimes wrong.
There’s no such dystopia today. Or is there? Wildlife in Colorado might live or die because of a Precrime mindset, a recent discussion at the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission showed.
As the CPW commission debated “bag limits” for animals classified as “furbearers” during its July meeting, agency officials discussed higher limits for animals that, in their view, will or might damage crops or livestock:
“The concept to me is that we’d remove these animals before they cause damage,” said Matt Eckert, CPW deputy assistant director. “And if we did not do that, what we’re saying is that landowners have to absorb this damage without any kind of mitigation from avocational harvest,” meaning recreational hunting.
“So I would much rather not put (the burden) entirely on the landowners. … I would rather give the opportunity to a fur harvester to take a furbearer that would cause damage in that situation.”
The assertion is audacious: CPW knows that some animals will damage crops or livestock, so why not shoot them first? No need to gather evidence.
Commissioner Dr. Becky Niemiec noted that science does not support the idea that killing more “furbearers” near farms and ranches will suppress damage to crops or livestock. “There’s been a variety of studies showing that’s not necessarily the case,” she noted, diplomatically.
Multiple studies on coyotes and mountain lions, for instance, show that preemptive killing is ineffective and might actually increase conflicts by destabilizing social structures.
What does reduce conflict is nonlethal conflict-mitigation and lethal removal of individual animals that have been shown to have actually caused damage, Niemiec noted.
The agency’s view of wildlife conflicts, as expressed during the July commission meeting, does not seem to be an aberration. For instance, 30-day-trapping permits issued before June 2025 showed many instances of multiple animals and species killed by traps that were banned, with rare exceptions, in 1996.
Leghold traps and snares were banned for recreational use in 1996 by a state constitutional amendment because they are extremely cruel and kill indiscriminately. But landowners can still use them if they demonstrate that legal methods, such as guard dogs, flashing lights or shooting, haven’t worked to dissuade a depredating animal.
The permits we reviewed via a Colorado Open Records Act request, however, showed that as many as seven beavers were trapped and killed under single permits in Jackson and Gunnison counties. Between 10 and 16 coyotes were trapped and killed under one permit in four other counties. And one permit holder in Otero County who employed leg-hold traps and snares to address their concerns ultimately killed 13 coyotes and 12 raccoons in a 30-day period.
Were all of these animals actually causing damage? Was there no other way to prevent the offense? Or was this Precrime wildlife management?
In cases like these and others — involving “furbearers,” mountain lions and bears — CPW seems to adopt a mindset suited to the Colorado Department of Agriculture, whose mission is to support and protect farmers and ranchers. But state law defines CPW’s actual mission as wildlife conservation for a broad range of purposes and the broader public.
As the protagonist in “Minority Report,” Tom Cruise plays a Precrime detective who becomes a fugitive when he learns that “precogs” have predicted that he will commit murder. “I’m not a murderer,” he says. “I’ve never even met the man I’m supposed to kill.”
If Colorado’s wildlife knew why they were preemptively — and without evidence — set up to be caught in a leghold trap or die from a gunshot wound, they might have a similar thought.
Colorado’s wildlife deserves to be treated with care and respect, not killed for the simple “crime” of existing in proximity to people, crops and livestock.
Clint Talbott, of Nederland, is the co-founder and vice president of Science for Colorado Wildlife.
Mark Surls, of Lakewood, is the Colorado and Northern Rockies coordinator for Project Coyote.
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