https://www.outdoorlife.com/hu...n-petition-colorado/


Mountain Lion Hunting Ban Filed in Colorado

The citizens initiative would appear on next year’s general election ballot

BY ANDREW MCKEAN | PUBLISHED SEP 23, 2023 3:01 PM EDT

HUNTING

CONSERVATION

Advocates to ban mountain lion hunting in Colorado filed a notice to put on next year’s ballot a measure that would outlaw mountain lion and bobcat hunting in the state.

The ballot proposal, which was filed yesterday, requires backers to gather signatures in order to qualify for next year’s general election. It has been filed under the title “Prohibit Trophy Hunting.” The draft was accepted by the state’s legislative council staff at about noon on Friday. Draft language indicates that the ballot measure will declare that “any trophy hunting of mountain lions, bobcats, or lynx is inhumane, serves no socially acceptable or ecologically beneficial purpose, and fails to further public safety.”


Backers further note in the draft that “trophy hunting is practiced primarily for the display of an animal’s head, fur, or other body parts, rather than the utilization of the meat.”

Colorado’s big-game regulations require mountain lion hunters to utilize meat from harvested lions. Regulations further allow for the use of hounds to both pursue lions.

The proposed ballot initiative would ban hound hunting for lions and bobcats. The draft language states that lion hunting is “almost always conducted by unsporting means, including, but not limited to, using packs of dogs with electronic devices to pursue and entrap affected animals in places from which they cannot escape in order to achieve the kill.”

In the 2023-24 season, Colorado’s Parks and Wildlife division authorized about 500 lion tags for seasons that run from the end of November through the end of March and again for the month of April in some hunting units. The state estimates the lion population of Colorado between 3,000 and 7,000 animals.

The notice to run a ballot initiative to ban mountain lion hunting has been widely anticipated in Colorado, and follows the appointments this summer of three “animal welfare” advocates to the state’s Wildlife and Parks Commission. Sportsmen’s groups expect another ballot initiative to ban all furbearer trapping in the state.

“I think what we’re seeing is the proverbial death by a thousand cuts,” said one Colorado hunting advocate who asked to speak off the record. “Mountain lion hunting is an easy target. There aren’t that many lion hunters, relatively speaking, and it’s easy to dismiss the activity as somehow out of the mainstream. But it’s an activity that’s heavily regulated. Quotas are conservatively managed, and we have a long history of successfully managing the species. I think opponents have to explain how a ban might affect depredating lions, especially in human communities.”


Once the Colorado Secretary of State approves the petition form, petitions may be circulated throughout the state to obtain the required number of signatures, which in 2024 is 124,238 qualified signatures.
You can read the entire text of the mountain lion hunting ban here.


Andrew McKean
Andrew McKean is Outdoor Life’s hunting and conservation editor, drilling into issues that affect wildlife, wildlands, and the people who care about them. He’s also OL’s optics editor, helping readers to make informed buying decisions.

So CO goes the same way as CA- wildlife management via the ballot box. Damn shame…..

I have seen it many times.

Conquer and divide.

I will bet many hunters that do not lion hunt will be voting for it.

I see more joggers becoming lunch.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by chuck375:
I see more joggers becoming lunch.[/QUOT

I hope the lions much the greenies dogs and cats too. I have been reading Colorado is the refuge of peoplefrom California, must be true. Too bad they bring the politics with them.

In my lifetime Colorado had a bounty on mountain lions. The way Colorado is headed deer will a rare sighting.

Smart move on greenies part
Citizen ballots work great against stupid politicians but they have the makings of tyranny of minority
Now hunters on CO need ballot initiative to reaffirm rights of hunters as minority rights

quote:

Originally posted by buckeyeshooter:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by chuck375:
I see more joggers becoming lunch.[/QUOT

I hope the lions much the greenies dogs and cats too. I have been reading Colorado is the refuge of peoplefrom California, must be true. Too bad they bring the politics with them.

When I lived in Western Montana in the 70s we called Colorado "the Massachusetts of the Rockies" it's only gotten more so. That being said, it's a lot better place to live than many others.

All you have to have in Texas is a valid hunting license. no tag. 7x24x365. Any means. We still have plenty of cats.

Is it a coincidence? Blue State people move in eventually turning CO blue, then they start restricting guns and magazine capacity and now they want to start limiting hunting? Anyone think this is the last anti-hunting effort from the blue people of Colorado? The whole state is Austin Texas.

The Californians are like locust - they screw up their own state and move onto the next state because they didn't like the results.

Amen to this. A plague on humanity. They leave CA because of the rules, regs, taxes, etc. Then they turn wherever they move into the shithole they fled..

quote:

Originally posted by jdollar:
Amen to this. A plague on humanity. They leave CA because of the rules, regs, taxes, etc. Then they turn wherever they move into the shithole they fled..

Could not have said it better.

quote:

Originally posted by surefire7:

quote:

Originally posted by jdollar:
Amen to this. A plague on humanity. They leave CA because of the rules, regs, taxes, etc. Then they turn wherever they move into the shithole they fled..

Could not have said it better.

Could be said about most of those raised and born in a city.

Western Colorado is still for the most part 'western'. But the city mice in the Denver/Boulder area out vote us on such things. Throw the 'Granola For Lunch' bunch of the ski towns and we are screwed left, right, and center.

quote:

Originally posted by squeezenhope:
In my lifetime Colorado had a bounty on mountain lions. The way Colorado is headed deer will a rare sighting.

Almost 78 years ago I was the 4th generation of my family to have been born in Denver, so I also remember the Colorado bounty on lions.

Now with Colorado voters bringing wolves into the state, the combination of wolves and no lion hunting will just about wipe out all of the deer, elk, bighorn sheep, and moose there.

Growing up in Colorado in the '60s, we had a saying of "Don't Californicate Colorado." Now, Colorado has been Californicated!