Colorado Parks and Wildlife employees can’t catch a break when it comes to their work on wolf reintroduction or the management of mountain lions.
And that can’t be good for their health, members of the Parks and Wildlife Commission say, or their bandwidth to manage the other 950-plus wildlife species in Colorado.
“I feel sorry for the people in this agency that are working on some of this,” said Marie Haskett, who represents outfitters on the commission, referring to CPW’s rocky first year of wolf reintroduction. “We put a tremendous amount of hours and a tremendous amount of pressure on them for everything we do. You can see it in every one of their faces.”
So on day two of the commissioners’ November meeting in Lamar, some pushed back on people accusing employees of intentionally trying to mislead the public on several issues related to the agency’s updated East Slope Mountain Lion Management Plan.
The commissioners unanimously approved the plan that will be used to shape hunting regulations for mountain lions east of the Continental Divide. It consolidates six separate data analysis units stretching from the Wyoming border to New Mexico into one unit, the agency says, because “larger management scales are most relevant to lion biology.”
It also replaces the previous objective of suppressing lion populations on the Eastern Slope with the goal of keeping that population stable, while allowing for management flexibility at smaller scales, it says.
It reduces the total number of lions hunters can kill in the region by 23%, or 48 animals, in the 2025-26 season and by 25%, or 53 lions, in 2026-27. And it sets an adult female composition threshold — or percent of adult females hunters can kill — at 22% in order to maintain a stable population, the agency says.
But what it doesn’t do is eliminate hound-assisted mountain lion hunting, which is what the majority of people commenting on the plan said they wanted.
Their remarks came just over a week after Proposition 127, which would have banned the hunting and trapping of mountain lions, bobcats and lynx, failed to pass, with 55.5% of voters casting ballots against it.
Now the new plan was going to continue the recreational killing of mountain lions in the name of management while also heralding lions for the same reasons the plan’s opponents did. And the opponents were making themselves heard at the meeting.
Updated mountain lion management
Approval of the plan came on the heels of CPW releasing new research from a Western Slope two-year-long mountain lion density study that showed lion populations in the Middle Park and Gunnison Basin regions are thriving.
A new Eastern Slope plan was needed, CPW said, because the previous one was 20 years old and updated management methods were needed based on new science. But it also acknowledges some of the arguments anti-hunters make for not hunting lions.
According to studies cited within the plan, Colorado, through conservation-based management, has the largest elk population in the country along with substantial herds of mule deer and white-tailed deer. These, plus quality lion habitat with “sufficient stalking and hiding cover” throughout the state, support the strongest population of lions since a policy of unregulated take ended in 1965.
CPW says somewhere between 3,800 and 4,400 lions roam Colorado, and they are known to kill deer with chronic wasting disease, though they haven’t reduced the disease’s prevalence.
Some researchers cited in the plan have shown lions’ possible role as a keystone species, due to the “nutrient hotspots” lion-killed carcasses create. The study also cites research demonstrating lions “directly or indirectly” interact with 534 other species across their hemispheric range and says they “may serve as an umbrella species for guiding wider landscape conservation efforts.”
The plan even acknowledges “the emerging values and desires from the state’s expanding constituencies at the wildlife stakeholder table,” including residents who “value abundant lion populations in appropriate habitats simply for their intrinsic value and ecological role.”
So, said the opponents lined up to comment, why allow hunting of lions?
Pushback on the plan
Many of the people who commented during the meeting said they aligned with the 1.4 million Coloradans who voted “yes” on Proposition 127.
The majority gave impassioned testimony for why hunting lions with hounds should be eradicated. And collectively they accused CPW of everything from violating its own fair chase hunting policy, to failing to adequately research the use of hunting as a management tool, to violating Colorado revised statutes 33-1-11, which cites hunting as one of several recreational activities Coloradans can use to interact with wildlife and ignoring science that says lions self-regulate their populations.
Opponent Deanna Meyer, a Douglas County farmer, accused CPW of colluding with opponents of Prop. 127 by “fast-tracking” the plan “immediately after finding out” in August that the initiative had gathered enough signatures to get on the ballot. She also said they put “their efforts into confusing the public by beating out the mantra that, ‘scientists, not activists,’ should permit over 500 mountain lions to be killed for trophies.”
Elise Elswood added the agency had created “a commodity for out-of-state hunters to get guaranteed trophy cats,” and accused Mark Vieira, CPW’s carnivore and furbearer program manager, of being “beholden to this hunting group and completely ignoring the majority of stakeholders here in Colorado.”
But after a lunch break, commissioner Haskett summoned Danielle Eisenhart, the agency’s manager of licenses and reservations, to give the commission a breakdown of resident versus nonresident lion licenses sold in 2024-25.
“I believe you’re probably asking about percentages, as we had a lot of public comment saying the vast majority were non-resident hunters,” Eisenhart responded. “That’s not the case. We had about 80% resident and 20% nonresident.”
Haskett then called on Jerry Apker, a retired CPW biologist who oversaw “mountain lion and bobcat matters” during his 38-year career with the agency, to respond to claims opponents had made that he had acknowledged mountain lions self-regulate their populations.
“From the broadest perspective, my understanding of the sciences is that yes, mountain lion populations will self-regulate, that they are controlled primarily by the abundance of prey, the quality of the hunting habitat and social structure in the population,” Apker told the commission. “But that doesn’t mean that that’s the only reason that you hunt mountain lions. There are lots of reasons to hunt mountain lions. Sport hunting is one of them.”
“It’s a recreational activity consistent with conservation of the species,” he added.
Commission turns from debate to discussion
After Apker spoke, the commission turned from debating some of the public comments to discussing the plan.
Commissioner Murphy Robinson, who represents hunters and anglers, wanted to know what would happen if the commission voted to remove hound hunting, which opponents had earlier called “cruel,” “barbaric” and “primarily benefiting roughly less than 1% of the state’s population of lion hunters.”
Vieira said he had studied the subject in Oregon and Washington, which banned hound hunting by citizen initiative in 1994 and 1996 respectively but sold thousands more licenses to non-hound lion hunters than Colorado in 2023. In Oregon, for example, 16,826 hunters tried for a cougar in 2023, and 331 animals were killed, while in Colorado approximately 2,500 licenses were sold and an average of 505 lions were killed over the past three years.
“For biological reasons” in Oregon, Vieira said, “female lions are at a much higher rate on the landscape” than males, leading to hunters being much more likely to encounter one than a male. Because it’s harder to identify a lion’s gender on the ground than when it’s in a tree, adult female lions are being killed at a “much, much higher rate” than in Colorado, he said.
Commissioner Karen Bailey also wanted to discuss CPW’s fair chase policy, which came up several times in public comments with respect to hound hunting.
The policy refers to ethical hunting guidelines meant to ensure hunters pursue wild game animals in a way that doesn’t give humans an unfair advantage. Among other things, the guidelines discourage using “dogs to chase and corner animals in a way that significantly limits the animal’s ability to escape,” and “a technology or practice that allows a hunter or angler to pursue or take wildlife without being physically present and pursuing wildlife in the field.”
“What is ‘physically present?’” Bailey asked. “Is it ‘right next to’? Is it ‘within shooting distance?’”
Brian Dreher, assistant director of CPW’s terrestrial wildlife branch, said a hunter must “be present at the time and place that any dogs are released on a track of a mountain lion, and they must continuously participate in the hunt until it ends.”
Bailey also wanted to know if there are protections in the plan for sub-adult female lions who show no signs of having given birth, and Vieira said that when a lion is treed it’s easier for a hunter to make a gender assessment, so regardless of a female lion’s age, “we’re going to see a reduction relative to current 45% thresholds.”
“And if you’ve all looked through the plan, there’s actually a number of outreach and educational things that we are going to do if we were to ever exceed (the new 22% threshold) in terms of asking hunters to voluntarily reduce harvest of females,” he added.
Currently anyone who wants to hunt a lion must have a valid hunting license with an additional mountain lion certification obtained through the Colorado Mountain Lion Education & Identification course.
The course teaches multiple ways to tell the difference between male and female lions, which will help hunters “make an informed choice” to “reduce unwanted female mountain lion mortality” and “mountain lion kitten mortality associated with orphaning.” The course also asks hunters to voluntarily refrain from killing female lions “if the management goal is to maintain or increase the mountain lion population (in a certain game management unit).”
Yet “hunting is not a sport where there’s a referee behind every tree,” said CPW northeast manager Mark Leslie. “But I want you to know we’re out there doing our law enforcement jobs and working on education.”
But Commission chair Dallas May said that talk of mountain lion hunting ethics, and fair chase and hunters killing lions illegally were “all being conflated” into their discussion of the plan, which was about “quotas and limits and the approach to that.”
However, “I do have problems (with the plan),” he said. “I mean, I’m in support of (it), but I think the problem that has created a lot of conflict is we can’t legislate that we have an education program that hunters take before gaining this license. You can’t make sure everybody’s going to do it and sometimes mistakes are made. But I think it’s important for the public to hear that … in instances of illegal take, CPW prosecutes it to the full extent, so there’s a process in place already for that.”
And he called on “the houndsmen who are here today, and who are listening,” to create a code of conduct, with morals and ethics, so the killing of lions illegally and unethically doesn’t happen.
But all of this could be avoided if the commission didn’t allow mountain lion hunting.
Dozens of opponents said as much, including Gina DiGiallonardo, who urged the commissioners “to take a chance and make changes to our current mountain lion hunting that include the views of all interested parties.”
Ashley Waddell asked them to consider a “meta analysis published in Biological Conservation Journal showing the preponderance of scientific evidence is in agreement that hunting lions causes more conflicts to happen between people and lions, livestock and lions and pets and lions.”
And Matthew Burgess said, “it’s hard to believe that in 2024 in the United States of America, we need to have a conversation and a vote about whether or not it is OK to chase a frightened animal with a pack of hounds up a tree, look at it, take pictures of it and then shoot it.”
“These animals are already stressed from the biggest threat to all wildlife, their loss of habitat,” he added, “especially here in Colorado.”
“If necessary, we will turn back to the legislature or another proposition, but we are not going to go away on this issue,” he said.
Commissioners urge respect for CPW
Bailey, in her comments earlier, said she wanted “to caution against language that’s really harsh against CPW employees. I feel it’s important to recognize that CPW staff are balancing competing interests.”
Robinson also chimed in, saying, “I take exception, with prejudice, to anyone who thinks it’s OK to attack a public servant for the job that they’re doing.”
And Tai Jacober, a Roaring Fork rancher who represents agricultural producers on the commission, said, “the people that put these plans together are the ultimate wildlife enthusiasts and have spent their entire life dedicated to taking care of wildlife and enjoying wildlife and the science behind them. So I want to recognize that’s how these plans are built, and that’s who they’re built by.”
Earlier in the day, when the commission was talking about public perception of hunting, Commission chair May had said, “I for one want to say that the people of CPW and the commissioners are here because they care about animals. Granted, there is take but there has to be some regulation in order to provide habitat.”
“Yes, all populations are self-regulating,” he added. “But does anybody enjoy seeing starving animals? Does anybody enjoy seeing male bear trying to kill the cubs of a sow that is not his? I mean, it’s part of life. It’s reality. But whenever the statement is made that CPW and this commission does not care about animals, I take great offense to it.”