A push to change a few sentences in Colorado’s statute flamed an ongoing debate about what should be driving wildlife management in the state. 

Colorado Reps. Elizabeth Velasco, a Western Slope Democrat, and Tammy Story, a Jefferson County Democrat, brought forth a House Bill that proposed changes to the statute that establishes hunting, trapping and fishing as Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s primary management tool for wildlife.  

The bill had its first hearing on Thursday, March 6, before the House Agriculture, Water & Natural Resources committee. After nearly four hours of testimony both for and against the bill, it was defeated in a 12-3 vote. 

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Proponents argued that the bill was an opportunity to ensure state law reflected the current practices of Parks and Wildlife while adding language to allow the agency to utilize the myriad of management tools at its disposal. 

Opponents were concerned that the changes would set a dangerous precedent, reducing the role that hunting, trapping and angling play in wildlife management and ultimately opening the door to get rid of the practices. 

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The hearing reunited many of the players and rehashed arguments that surrounded Proposition 127 last year — a failed ballot measure that would have banned the hunting of mountain lions, bobcats and lynx in Colorado. Bill supporters used the arguments against these practices as evidence that the current state law places values over science. Opponents claimed it was another example of groups attempting to circumvent the use of hunting as a wildlife management tool. 

Thursday’s hearing dredged up debates over the efficiency of hunting as management, the morality of certain practices and more. 

What the bill proposed

Currently, the statute authorizing Parks and Wildlife holds that “The state shall utilize hunting, trapping and fishing as the primary methods of effecting necessary wildlife harvests.” 

The bill would have changed this sentence from “shall utilize” to “may authorize” concerning the use of hunting, trapping and fishing. 

It proposed replacing the words “as the primary methods of affecting necessary wildlife harvests” with “to manage game species in accordance with the best available wildlife and ecological science to benefit wildlife, whole ecosystem health and all Coloradans.” 

It also would have required the agency’s commission to consider the “best available” science in making decisions.

Colorado’s Department of Natural Resources and Parks and Wildlife were neutral on the bill. Prior to Thursday’s hearing, Travis Duncan, statewide public information officer for Parks and Wildlife, stated that the agency and commission already used wildlife and ecological science to make decisions. 

“(Parks and Wildlife) employs hundreds of wildlife biologists, social scientists and other highly educated staff that provide recommendations to the commission based on reliable and valid scientific data,” Duncan said. 

What science is the best science?  

With Parks and Wildlife already using science, research and data for its decision making, the bill sponsors and supporters touted it as a common-sense change to make.

“Many people seem to believe that (Parks and Wildlife) and (the) Department of Natural Resources are already using best available science, and I believe that they are, too,” Story said. “Because they are using it, it doesn’t mean that they can’t be better.” 

Velasco repeatedly said that the goal was to update an outdated provision, something the legislature does often. 

“I represent a diverse district, and I am very supportive of hunting, trapping and fishing, and understand the benefits of those opportunities,” Velasco said in an interview prior to the hearing. “This is just to add a piece around science … and strengthen our ways of protecting our public lands and protecting our ecology in the state.”

For supporters, the bill offered an opportunity to codify all wildlife management tools, not just hunting. 

On Thursday, Michael Pardo, a wildlife biologist living in Fort Collins, said that the current law was “unnecessarily restrictive.” 

“While hunting, fishing, and trapping are certainly an important component of wildlife management, they’re not always the best tool for the job,” Pardo said. 

Delia Malone, the wildlife chair of the Colorado Sierra Club, argued in an interview that this type of change was needed to fully restore biodiversity and ecosystem health.

“In Colorado, our biodiversity is declining like it is around the world. That’s an indicator that, to date, our management strategy has not been sufficient,” Malone said. “This language change elevates ‘best available science’ to a priority. Up until now, the priority has been with the old way of doing things: hunting, fishing and trapping.”

While opponents expressed concerns that the term “best available science” was too vague and would lead to challenges, bill supporters and sponsors argued this was a well-established phrase referring to research that is current, objective, peer-reviewed, measurable and reproducible. 

‘An all-out attack on hunting’

Many of the bill’s opponents indicated that Parks and Wildlife was already using “science-based wildlife management,” rooted in the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. The model, which has ties back to the 1900s, has been adopted by many federal and state wildlife agencies including Parks and Wildlife as the system for managing wildlife.

It has seven primary principles, including one that establishes science as the basis for wildlife protection, one that sets hunting and fishing as a democratic activity, and several that guide hunting ethics. 

“We use hunting as a tool simply because it seems to be the most effective, not just for funding, but also for scientific wildlife management, meaning that when we’re managing certain game species, we do it in concert with managing other game species, non-game species and species of all kinds,” said Luke Wiedel, the lead policy volunteer in Colorado for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and a board member of Coloradans For Responsible Wildlife Management. 

At the hearing, Callie Scritchfield, a Rio Blanco County commissioner, said the county opposed the bill because this current model works. 

“If it isn’t broken, let’s not try to fix it,” Scritchfield said. “Our landowners rely on consistent and dependable management of all species. If passed, this bill would provide much less consistency and dependability by emotionalizing and politicizing management decisions.”

With most opponents agreeing that Parks and Wildlife was already utilizing the science to manage wildlife, they felt the bill had another target. 

Perry Will, a Garfield County commissioner and former state senator, referred to it as an “all-out attack on hunting” on Thursday.  

In an interview ahead of the hearing, Logan Holtz said the bill effort followed a growing trend in the country and state against hunting. Holtz is a Colorado board member for HOWL for Wildlife, an advocacy organization for hunting and fishing, and a member of Parks and Wildlife’s Sportsperon’s Roundtable for the Northwest Region.  

“Colorado is really an epicenter right now for attacking science-based wildlife management,” Holtz said, hypothesizing that the trend is rooted in a misunderstanding of the role hunting plays in wildlife management. 

What attacks like this are attempting to do is dismantle that very agency that the people trust to manage our wildlife,” Wiedel said. “The defeat of Proposition 127 already showed very clearly and directly that the voters trust our state game and fish agencies, and they already believe they’re managing all of our species, game and non-game scientifically.”

The bill sponsors and some supporters argued that the bill was not attempting to eliminate hunting, but rather codify additional tools.

“Hunting, trapping and fishing is clearly strongly woven into the culture of Colorado, and this bill does not change that,” Story said. 

The bill sponsor went on to point out that there has been a “downward trend in the numbers of people who are engaged in hunting.” 

“There’s an indication that hunting peaked in our country in 1982, and since then, the amount of hunting has been on the decline,” Story said. 

Dave Ruane, a Weld County resident, argued that there is a need for the hunting community to evolve as participation shrinks and populations grow in his testimony supporting the bill.

“As a hunter, I’m also all too often embarrassed by the vitriolic resistance to allowing the non-hunting general public, the non-consumptive users, if you will, to have a say or a seat at the table in wildlife issues and policy,” Ruane said. “It is time to agree on some common-sense cleanup measures in the hunting community.” 

Bill advocates on Thursday called certain hunting practices — predominantly the trapping of species like beavers and bobcats — unethical, unnecessary and outdated. Supporters felt the bill could cement the role of other management tools going forward. 

“To be clear, we are not directing (Parks and Wildlife) to choose any method over another,” Story said. “We are removing a mandate so that (the agency) has the freedom to choose which methods best suit the needs of the wildlife and environment.”

In her dissenting vote, Rep. Karen McCormick, the committee chair and a Democrat representing Boulder County, said her decision was rooted in the ambiguity around what merits best available science — and who would determine what was best. 

McCormick said that based on the testimony Thursday, Parks and Wildlife already has the tools it needs to manage wildlife. Her dissent came down to how changing the language could lead to unforeseen consequences. 

“I just have concerns about who we’re giving the actual power to,” McCormick said.