Volunteers with the Colorado-based group Cats Aren’t Trophies Coalition (CATs) delivered 188,000 signatures from registered voters backing Initiative 91 to the Secretary of State’s office this month, exceeding the required 124,238 signatures needed to secure the measure’s spot on the November ballot.
If passed, the initiative would establish as a class one misdemeanor the intentional killing, wounding, pursuing, entrapping, discharging or releasing of a deadly weapon at mountain lions, lynx and bobcats. Fines and hunting license suspension are also potential consequences of such conduct. There are, however, exceptions to this rule for the protection of human life, property and livestock.
There has been much debate around what constitutes “trophy hunting,” but Samantha Miller, campaign manager at CATs, put it plainly: “No one has mountain lion meat in their freezer. There are a lot of ethical hunters who hunt deer and elk that support this campaign. No one’s hunting lions for their meat, and they certainly aren’t eating bobcats either. These cats are trapped for their pelts and the pelts are sold at a fur auction each year.”
To the group’s credit, the Secretary of State signed off on their ballot description, which included trophy hunting.
“This is animal cruelty that’s allowed to continue to our wildlife, and I think every Coloradan knows that this isn’t really hunting. It’s a trophy exercise for heads and coats and nothing more than that,” Miller said.
But the group has not been without pushback, and the opposition has been loud. While Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) released a statement saying they would adopt a neutral stance on the matter, hunting groups like Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management argue that the initiative is misleading in its usage of the phrase “trophy hunting,” and that the initiative’s implementation is irresponsible to wildlife regulation.
Some have gone as far as to call CATs “animal rights extremists” and “anti-hunters” and to question whether this could lead down a slippery slope of banning hunting altogether.
Miller said this is nonsense. They are not against ethical hunting and she pointed out numerous times that the initiative would allow for lethal force if necessary. “There’s absolutely no scientific evidence that trophy hunting and trapping is necessary for mountain lion and bobcat management. There’s no scientific evidence at all that trophy hunting and trapping reduces conflict,” she added.
In fact, there appears to be evidence to the contrary: a new study published this month by Jim Keen, a former U.S. Department of Agriculture scientist and former faculty member at the University of Nebraska, found that most conflicts can be managed by non-lethal means.
The study found mountain lions to be self-regulating, which calls into question the need for hunting as a means of population control.
A handful of other states have already implemented more regulations surrounding trophy hunting than Colorado, including Montana, Washington and California. Washington has long had restrictions on the use of hounds (dogs) for hunting, and on July 19, the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission voted to approve amended cougar hunting rules that will “reign in unsustainable cougar killing.”
California has had a ban on trophy hunting of mountain lions similar to Initiative 91 for 50 years. According to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, mountain lion populations have remained stable, and increased sightings and reports of mountain lion activity are likely due to an increase in social media usage and home security cameras that pick up sightings.
In Montana, there are caps on the number of female lions allowed to be killed — the annual percentage of mountain lions killed in Montana that are female must remain below 30%. In Colorado, around half of all mountain lions killed are female. Without regulation, this inevitably orphans cubs.
While the fate of the bill is yet to be seen, proponents are excited for the possibilities to come. Citing emerging evidence on mountain lions’ unique ability to select for chronic wasting disease, a common affliction in Colorado that proves fatal to deer, elk and moose, Miller added, “Mountain lions do a huge service to keep our elk and deer herds healthy, and [Initiative 91] really enables these cats to do the service at their best ability, while still empowering CPW to manage mountain lions for their benefit to ecosystems.”