What You Need to Know About Colorado’s Proposed Lion Hunting Ban

In 1992, voters first sidestepped Colorado Parks & Wildlife with a ban on spring black bear hunting, and in 2020, they narrowly approved a controversial measure to reintroduce wolves in the western half of the state. This new ballot initiative is especially problematic because it could set a broad precedent by defining “trophy hunting” to simply mean the act of pursuing and killing an animal, even for the purpose of obtaining meat. In other words, it’s what sportsmen simply know as “hunting.”

“Mountain lion and bobcat hunting are the low-hanging fruit here,” Dan Gates with Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management, said. “But it’s hunting as a whole that’s on the chopping block.”

With such a sweeping definition of what trophy hunting is, what’s stopping the same language from being applied to elk, deer, mountain goats, or any other game animals? “This isn’t about species, or methods of take, or states,” he said, “this is about hunting.”

Diving into the language of the proposition, there are a few fundamental misunderstandings of wildlife regulations in Colorado that could mislead voters in November. While the proposition states that trophy hunting “is practiced primarily for the display of an animal’s head, fur or other body parts, rather than for utilization of the meat,” it ignores the fact that Colorado hunting regulations explicitly require hunters to keep the meat off mountain lions.

Specifically, the current regs read: “All edible parts of lions must be properly prepared for human consumption, excluding internal organs. At a minimum, this means the four quarters, tenderloins, and backstraps.” Granted, most cat hunters tan the hide and keep the skull as well, but so do hunters of any number of other game animals, like goats, sheep, or even elk and deer.

Secondly, the inclusion of lynx in the proposition gives the impression that the species is threatened by hunting. Make no mistake, though, lynx have been a federally threatened species since the year 2000, and are illegal to hunt in Colorado. In fact, Alaska is the only state where it’s currently legal to hunt the species.

More importantly, however, the initiative negates the science-based management approach to mountain lions that CPW has been taking since 1965—the last year of a nearly decade-long bounty program on lions in Colorado. In the same 1965 session, the Colorado Wildlife Commission also set bag limits, open areas, season dates, and legal methods of take (excluding trapping, but including the use of hounds). At the time, lion populations were as low as 125 animals, according to some estimates. Now, under CPW’s management, populations are stable, with around 3,800 and 4,400 animals in the state.

Sportsmen and conservation groups are quick to point out that the ballot initiative would be a major setback to the decades of management and research since that 1965 pivot point.

“Science-based wildlife management decisions help avoid unintended consequences for people, other species, and the entire ecosystem,” BHA said in a press release. “Colorado’s current regulations, which consider the biology, habitat, and natural history of mountain lions and bobcats, have resulted in healthy and abundant populations utilizing hunting as the primary management tool.”

Without hunting, there would likely be an uptick in human-cat conflicts, especially near urban areas. Hunting can help alleviate conflicts by keeping populations at low enough levels so the cats don’t have to venture into urban areas looking for food. Former Broncos defensive end Derek Wolfe can testify to this. In 2023, he legally shot an enormous 173-pound mountain lion on the periphery of a semi-urban area, near where an eight-year-old was attacked just a few years earlier.

“People don’t understand how many cats are out here and why we need to hunt some of them,” Wolfe told MeatEater after the highly-publicized hunt. “I’m not saying there’s a million mountain lions out there trying to kill you, I’m just saying, there are a lot of them, and they get into communities and cause trouble.”

At the end of the day, though, Wolfe concluded the interview by saying, “What I’m really looking forward to is the breakfast sausage.” It’s a sentiment easily relatable to hunters, and one worth reiterating to those in support of the ban.

With less than two months to the election, the biggest thing we can do, concluded Gates, “is bring the realization to interested parties—duck hunters, bird hunters, goat hunters, elk hunters… everyone—that no matter your flavor of pursuit, someone doesn’t like it, and the anti-hunting opposition in Colorado will only be happy when there’s no game left to be hunted.”

As hunters, we can all do our part to support Colorado hunting traditions by understanding the facts of the ballot initiative and what’s at stake. Lion hunting is highly regulated (all hunters in Colorado who wish to purchase a tag complete an online training and exam covering lion biology, physiology, behavior, and the central tenets of wildlife management), and doesn’t differ all that much from hunting other game species we love to pursue. “It’s lines in the sand,” Gates said. “And we need to prevent those lines from being erased and filled in with concrete.”