By Marianne Goodland | Colorado Politics
Animal rights groups lost at the ballot box last November in their efforts to ban big-cat hunting and trapping, but the fight was not over, as some lawmakers pushed to remove hunting, trapping and fishing as “primary” methods for “necessary wildlife harvests.”
The proposal ultimately died in the House Agriculture, Water and Natural Resources Committee on Thursday.
Sponsored by Reps. Tammy Story, D-Evergreen, and Elizabeth Velasco, D-Glenwood Springs, House Bill 1258 would replace replace language in one of the statutes governing Colorado Parks and Wildlife to say the state “may” — instead of “shall” — authorize hunting, trapping and fishing and that decision would be “based on best available wildlife and ecological science to benefit wildlife, whole ecosystem health, and all Coloradans.”