Amendment 83 wins backing from 230 Colorado Parks and Wildlife employees

By Ali Longwell | Steamboat Pilot & Today

While state law bars Colorado Parks and Wildlife from speaking out for or against ballot measures, a group of its employees has issued a statement supporting Amendment 83. It’s the latest in a growing list of endorsements both supporting and opposing the measure, which asks voters to consider adding a right to hunt and fish to Colorado’s Constitution on November’s ballot.

The Colorado Wildlife Employees Protective Association issued a statement of support for Amendment 83 after a vote of its membership — which includes around 230 of Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s approximately 1,000 employees. Any full-time “duly appointed” employee of Parks and Wildlife can join, with its membership including officers, biologists and administrators. A separate association represents its parks division. 

It’s only the second time in the group’s 79-year history that it has taken a formal position on an election issue, just a few years after it adopted a resolution
 stating that decisions about wildlife management should be left to the agency’s science-based professionals and not subject to ballot initiatives. That resolution came as Colorado voters were facing Proposition 127, a failed 2024 measure that proposed banning big cat hunting.

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