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Colorado Ballot Measure Would Protect Hunting and Fishing in State Constitution
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Complete Colorado, Approved, State

Colorado Ballot Measure Would Protect Hunting and Fishing in State Constitution

By Mike Krause | Complete Colorado DENVER–Colorado voters will decide in November whether to enshrine hunting and fishing as a constitutional right, after the secretary of state’s office on Wednesday confirmed Initiative #302 qualified for the general election ballot. Backers of the measure, formally titled “Constitutional Right to Hunt and Fish,” turned in over 184,000 petition signatures, with state election officials declaring more than 145,000 of those as valid, easily clearing the roughly 124,000 signature threshold required for constitutional amendments, as well as the 2% per-district requirement in all 35 of Colorado’s state senate districts. The measure, backed by the newly formed T. Roosevelt Conservation Alliance, amends the Colorado Constitution to establish...
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Hunters Warn Colorado Wildlife Commission of Legal Challenge Over Furbearer Limits
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Complete Colorado, Approved, State

Hunters Warn Colorado Wildlife Commission of Legal Challenge Over Furbearer Limits

By Derek Draplin | Complete Colorado DENVER—Two groups representing hunters are warning Colorado’s wildlife commissioners to withdraw their recent vote that restricted the bag limit for furbearer species to two per day, or potentially face a lawsuit. The Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation and Safari Club International argue in an August 5 letter to the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission that hunters and trappers were deprived of providing public comment when commissioners adopted the two-furbearer daily bag limit that was pushed by one of Gov. Jared Polis’s appointees to the commission. The letter lays out how the commission gave public notice of two options under consideration: a daily bag limit of 15, or a bag limit of up to eight (or four), depe...
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Hunters and Anglers Rally Behind Constitutional Right to Hunt and Fish
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, State

Hunters and Anglers Rally Behind Constitutional Right to Hunt and Fish

By Chris Dorsey | The Denver Gazette For generations, Coloradans hunted elk, caught trout and managed wildlife without consulting a constitutional attorney. That was before wildlife management became a recurring statewide election issue, replete with consultants, national pressure groups and enough political mail to denude an aspen grove.   Now comes Initiative 302, the proposed “Constitutional Right to Hunt and Fish,” driven by sportsmen who have concluded that activities legal today may require constitutional protection to remain legal tomorrow. Supporters submitted more than 180,000 signatures on July 8, well above the 124,238 valid signatures required. The secretary of state has until Sept. 2 to verify them. Nothing says “settled Colorado tradition” quite li...
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Colorado Records 17th Wolf Death After Livestock Attacks
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Colorado Records 17th Wolf Death After Livestock Attacks

By: Marianne Goodland | Colorado Politics   A yearling male wolf in Grand County has become the 17th wolf to die in Colorado in the past two years. Colorado Parks and Wildlife announced that its staff killed the wolf on Aug. 4 because it was believed to be responsible for killing four calves in Jackson and Grand counties between June 29 and Aug. 1. The state agency’s announcement said the producers had pursued nonlethal measures to minimize conflict with the wolf. Ranchers have told Colorado Politics that those minimization efforts are ineffective. The wolf killed on Tuesday is the second mortality in 10 days. Another wolf had been found dead in northwest Colorado, according to a CPW announcement, but no further details were made available. READ THE FUL...
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Study adds evidence that wolves can cost Colorado ranchers beyond livestock losses
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Study adds evidence that wolves can cost Colorado ranchers beyond livestock losses

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project The link below was sent in by a reader. It profiles a study out of University of California, Davis which purports to put a price on how much a single wolf in an area can cost a rancher. It’s right there at the top; the image heading this post is the title. I’ll leave it to you to read through the details of the study, note its methods, and come to your own conclusions on the validity of the estimate. For my part, I’m somewhat skeptical of the number itself. I do not at all doubt that wolves put economic costs on ranchers. I do doubt the exact figure and am skeptical in general about estimates.** Rather than looking in depth at the estimate and the method, however, I want to bring something to your attention. This...
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New Wolf Pack Confirmed in Eagle County as Colorado Monitors Population Growth
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Colorado Politics, Approved, Local

New Wolf Pack Confirmed in Eagle County as Colorado Monitors Population Growth

By Marissa Ventrelli | Colorado Politics A new gray wolf pack has formed in Eagle County, Colorado Parks and Wildlife announced on Wednesday. Known as the Piney Ridge Pack, it is the fourth pack of gray wolves in the state to have produced pups this year. According to CPW, the average litter size for wolves is four to six pups. More information about the packs will be included in the agency’s annual report next spring. “Detection of pups in late spring or early summer is inherently challenging, because of their use of remote habitats in dense cover, secretive nature of very young animals and time potentially underground,” said CPW’s Wolf Conservation Program Manager Eric Odell. “We are continuing to monitor the four reproducing packs in Colorado and will include...
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Colorado Wildlife Commission Sets New Limits on Fur Bearer Harvest While Rejecting Fur Sale Ban
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The Colorado Sun, Approved, State

Colorado Wildlife Commission Sets New Limits on Fur Bearer Harvest While Rejecting Fur Sale Ban

By Tracy Ross | The Colorado Sun The commission voted 6-5 to set daily bag limits to two animals per person for 17 species. Colorado trappers can no longer kill unlimited numbers of fur-bearing animals including mink, bobcat and coyote after the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission voted to limit them to two animals per species per day at its monthly meeting in Ignacio on Thursday.   The vote came after months of fighting between animal advocacy and pro-hunting groups, and the decision went against a recommendation by CPW staff and Director Laura Clellan, who had recommended a daily limit of four to 15 animals depending on species.  The new limit will affect a small number of hunters or trappers, as the vast majority of trappers take...
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Colorado Right To Hunt And Fish Measure Clears Key Ballot Hurdle
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The Steamboat Pilot, Approved, State

Colorado Right To Hunt And Fish Measure Clears Key Ballot Hurdle

By: Ali Longwell | The Steamboat Pilot Opponents of the measure are concerned it could limit wildlife management flexibility and spur legal challenges. A group seeking to establish a constitutional right to hunt and fish in Colorado has cleared a major hurdle on its way to the November 2026 ballot.  On July 8, supporters of what’s currently known as Initiative 302 submitted over 180,000 signatures to Colorado’s Secretary of State.  “This commitment by the people demonstrates the energy behind preserving our heritage here in the Centennial State this November,” said Dan Gates, founder of Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management, in a news release. “Now it’s time to get it across the finish line and codify this in the state constitution so c...
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Ranchers Question Whether Wolves Are Changing Coyote Behavior Around Colorado Livestock
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Cowboy State Daily, Approved, Local

Ranchers Question Whether Wolves Are Changing Coyote Behavior Around Colorado Livestock

By Mark Heinz | Cowboy State Daily Ranchers in northern Colorado wonder if the growing wolf population is causing coyotes to be more aggressive toward livestock. "In 30 years of doing this, I’ve never seen anything like that," a rancher said about two coyotes attacking healthy livestock. A northern Colorado rancher who lives near one of the state’s reintroduced wolf packs said she and her neighbors are becoming increasingly frustrated because when wolves aren’t threatening livestock, coyotes are. Amanda Cerveny said she spotted and took video of a lone canine crossing her property near cattle. She thought at first it could have been a small or young wolf, but also thought it might be a coyote. Her latter suspicions were confirmed by biologist Doug Smith...
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Who’s shaping Colorado’s outdoors? An examination of Colorado’s Outdoors Strategy
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Who’s shaping Colorado’s outdoors? An examination of Colorado’s Outdoors Strategy

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Colorado’s Outdoors Strategy CPW recently released “Colorado’s Outdoors Strategy.” The first link below takes you to their landing page from which you can download the report itself. Covering this in detail is not feasible here, as the executive summary of the strategy (see the second link below) is 16 pages long. What I wanted to aim for, then, is to give you a jumping off point along with a nodding familiarity with what the report is intended to do, who participated, and the process by which it was made. This will also tie into the second post today: this strategy is reflective of a larger push to rewire our state wildlife and land use policy. If I had to do a one-sentence summary of the Strategy, it ...
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