The Greatest Fight of Our Lives.
Robert Kroger
Executive Director of Blood Origins
Printed in the August 2024 Issue of Full Cry
February 18th. The ballot initiative to ban mountain lion, bobcat and lynx hunting in Colorado started to move forward. It started with two initiatives, resolved into one initiative, Proposed Initiative 91, and has been whipped by the anti-hunting crowd, led by the proponents, CATS to get the required number of signatures to get onto the ballot for the public of Colorado to decide a biological management decision around whether mountain lions, bobcats, and lynx (they are already federally protected) can be legally hunted in Colorado in the future.
As of today we have a lot of things solidified around this ballot initiative process. CATS have delivered, based on news from their camp, 188,000 signatures to the Colorado Secretary of States office, and by the end of July, and by the time this is published, we will know whether they have passed the bar to get onto the general election ballot on November 5th, 2024.
It is arguably the biggest fight of the hunting community has ever faced. A major possible ban of a big game species, in a western state that is a big hunting state. If this mountain lion domino falls, who’s to say what domino will fall next? Lions in New Mexico and further through the mountain west? Other species, like sheep, elk, deer? People will say, that will never happen. We didn’t think we would be in the position we are in right now with mountain lions. The fight becomes even bigger with precedence, and specifically, if passed, the definition of hunting that will be codified into the state legislature that can be pointed to as a “see, there is a defined definition of hunting in state statute to ban hunting”.
As we start moving into the next phase of this initiative it’s important for you to know and think about your response to the talking points of the opposition. From what we can see and gather through op-eds the message will focus on the following:
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Trophy hunting mountain lions and trapping bobcats is cruel, unethical, and inhumane.
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Trophy hunting mountain lions and trapping bobcats does not improve public safety or reduce conflicts with pets and livestock.
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Trophy hunting mountain lions and trapping bobcats serves no conservation purpose.
All of which is false rhetoric. There is a campaign that has been rolled out called “Colorado’s Wildlife Deserve Better” (find it on social and follow), in which the truth will be brought forward:
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30 years of sustainable regulated hunting has put Colorado as the #1 state for Mountain lion management and science, essentially a testament to the conservation ethic.
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The hunting of mountain lions and bobcats is about hunting for meat and smart wildlife management, NOT hunting for a trophy.
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The banning of hunting will not spare mountain lions being hunted, but rather, they will now be hunted by professionals to mitigate human wildlife conflict.
Colorado has been hunting mountain lions for 50 years. If the hunting of mountain lions was unsustainable do you think after 50 years of consumptive use utilization that mountain lion populations would be existent? Sustained? Or growing? You would think that if hunting was harmful population numbers would be plummeting. In fact the science shows the opposite. Populations are sustained and evenly positively growing. Biologists are actively seeing emigration from the population into states in the East, including Nebraska, South Dakota, and Kansas. How? Because there is a healthy population in Colorado that continues to have excess mountain lions that the habitat can sustain and dispersal of those lions is occurring.
The mission and playing field for the next 180 days will be the same as it was for the first 180 days of the year. Push our truth. Push our message. Change perspectives around mountain lion hunting in Colorado and save the hunt. If you want more information on this go to www.savethehuntcolorado.com