When the bison cross over, they lose the protections Utah gives the species as a big-game animal. In Colorado, there are no repercussions for killing wild bison.

Such killings are rare in Colorado, but the state should protect the species because of its importance to Coloradans and Native American communities across the country, Sen. Jessie Danielson said. The Jefferson County Democrat is sponsoring a bill in the legislature that would make it illegal to kill bison here.

“This is a really important animal to the state of Colorado, our history, our cultural background,” Danielson said. “The Native community brought this forward because of the importance of the animal to their religion and culture.”

Senate Bill 53 would classify bison as big-game wildlife, which would regulate the killing of the native species. Like it is for elk and deer, the killing of wild bison would be legal only with a hunting permit approved by Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

Killing a bison without a permit would be considered poaching and punishable by a fine or imprisonment. The changes proposed in the bill would not apply to privately owned bison on ranches or preserves.

The bill passed out of the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee last week on a 4-3 vote. It is one of three pieces of legislation from the legislature’s American Indian Affairs Interim Study Committee, which convened for the first time last year.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials are aware of 12 incidents over the last 10 years in which wild bison were killed in Colorado, Andy Holland, the big game manager for CPW, said Thursday during a committee hearing for the bill. Wild bison that cross into Colorado generally come from the Book Cliffs herd across the Utah border, near Grand Junction.

About 130 animals make up the subherd closest to the Colorado border, he said.

Tens of millions of bison roamed the Great Plains and the West until the arrival of European American settlers, who systematically decimated the herds. By the early 1800s, bison no longer existed west of the Rocky Mountains or east of the Mississippi River and were slaughtered across the Great Plains, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Settlers killed the bison to sell their skins, and the U.S. military used the mass slaughter of the buffalo as a way to weaken and undermine the Native American tribes that relied on the animal for food, shelter and spiritual needs.

By 1889, only a few hundred wild bison remained. The last wild bison in Colorado were killed in 1897 in South Park, according to CPW.

The federal government, states and tribal nations have since worked to grow and manage bison herds. Approximately 20,500 bison now live in conservation herds — like those that live in Denver’s Genesee Park in the foothills — and an additional 420,000 live in commercial herds, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Native American leaders from multiple tribes who spoke in favor of the bill last week said bison — also called the American buffalo — should be welcomed back into Colorado and recognized as a survivor of genocide.

“We have a total annihilation of a species that we as Native people can relate to — because, essentially, they were trying to get rid of us and annihilate us,” said Teddy McCullough, a citizen of the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians. “There is a total interconnectedness between who we are as Native people and who our cultures are and what happened to the bison.”

Buffalo are considered a family member in many tribes and remain an important part of many tribes’ traditions.

“These are more than just animals — they are kin, providers and the cornerstone of our very existence,” Southern Ute Tribe council member Andrew Gallegos said.

The ceremonies that use parts of the buffalo — like hides and bones — are not relics of the past but an active part of many tribes’ culture today, said Dustin Baird, who is Oglala Lakota.

“A buffalo hide is not just a blanket — it is a prayer and a reminder,” he said. “Its warmth wraps us in the lessons of the buffalo, teaching us how to be strong, patient and steadfast in our responsibilities to one another.”

The Associated Governments of Northwest Colorado opposed the bill, arguing that protections for bison could lead to an eventual herd becoming established in Colorado, which could impact the agricultural economy of the region.

“In northwest Colorado, where grazing and agriculture are one of our few economic drivers, we feel that added species protection for bison puts additional stress on existing limited resources for local ranchers and CPW,” said Richard Orf on behalf of the association of local governments.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials said Thursday that the agency supported the intent of the bill but it needed amendments. The agency wants lawmakers to extend the effective date of the bill to May 2026, to establish hunting license fees in case a bison hunting season eventually opens and to create costlier penalties for illegal poaching of the species.

The agency does not plan to open a hunting season for bison in the near future but wants hunting fees to be established now for efficiency, said Brian Dreher, CPW’s assistant director for the Terrestrial Wildlife Branch.

Other states in the Rocky Mountain West — including Utah, Montana, Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming — have already adopted similar laws classifying wild bison as big game.

“Colorado is currently an outlier, despite our love for this creature,” said Annika Antholis, a campaign associate for Environment Colorado.

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services shot and killed the wolf on Saturday after connecting it to a report of livestock depredations on private land in north-central Wyoming, USDA spokeswoman Tanya Espinosa said in an email Thursday.

Five sheep had been killed and investigators found evidence of wolf presence, including wolf tracks and bite marks on carcasses consistent with wolves.

Wildlife Services staff did not know the wolf was one of Colorado’s collared individuals until after they killed it, Espinosa said.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife on Sunday received a mortality alert from the collar of one of the wolves relocated in January from Canada to Colorado, the agency said in a news release. The killing of the male wolf — collar identification 2505-BC — reduced the number of collared wolves under CPW management to 27.

Gray wolves are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act in Colorado, but lose those protections if they wander into other states where they are not federally protected, like much of Wyoming.

Wolf advocates condemned the killing and said it undermined the restoration of the native species to Colorado.

“This senseless killing was avoidable,” said Rob Edward, president of the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project. “Wyoming ranchers and federal agencies have the tools and knowledge to prevent livestock losses without resorting to lethal measures in most cases. Their refusal to implement these practices is reckless and undermines the hard-fought efforts to restore wolves in Colorado.

“We cannot allow the progress made in Colorado to be undone by Wyoming’s failure to act responsibly,” he said.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department has jurisdiction over the gray wolf population outside of the boundaries of the two national parks in the state and the Wind River Indian Reservation.

In the northwest corner of the state, the species is managed as a trophy game species and killing of the animals is controlled by hunting regulations. In the vast majority of the state, however, gray wolves are classified as predators and can be killed year-round without a license.

USDA’s Wildlife Services works with farmers and ranchers to abate damage caused by wildlife, such as beavers flooding fields and predators killing livestock. The service can relocate or kill wolves killing livestock, according to its website.

In 2023, the service killed 305 gray wolves and relocated 64 more across seven states in the Rocky Mountains and Great Lakes regions, according to agency data.

CPW inked agreements with three states that allow the agency to capture wolves that wander from Colorado into Utah, Arizona and New Mexico and return them to the Centennial State. The agreements were intended to keep Colorado’s gray wolves from mixing with those states’ Mexican gray wolves, which are a subspecies that is managed separately under the Endangered Species Act.

Colorado does not have such an agreement with Wyoming.

It’s not surprising that a wolf made its way to Wyoming and was killed since unregulated wolf killing is the norm across much of the state, said Kaitie Schneider, Colorado representative for Defenders of Wildlife.

Colorado could be an example for Wyoming and other Western states of how wolves and people can coexist by using nonlethal conflict mitigation tactics, she said.

“Lethal control should not be the first line of defense,” she said.

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Colorado Parks and Wildlife will pay Farrell Livestock $287,407 and Bruchez and Sons $56,008. State law mandates that the wildlife agency compensate ranchers for the fair market value of livestock and guard animals killed by wolves, up to $15,000.

The Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission voted unanimously Wednesday to approve the payments to the ranches.

“This is not somebody asking for a bonus or a dividend, but this is someone simply trying to stay in business,” said commission chair Dallas May, who is a rancher.

The payment to Farrell Livestock includes compensation for 15 livestock killed by wolves in the spring of 2024 as well as for lower conception rates and lower calf weights caused by the presence of wolves on the ranch, CPW Northwest Regional Manager Travis Black said.

The agency is still negotiating with the ranch over how much it will pay for missing cattle that the ranch owners said could be wolf kills they never found. The ranch owners submitted a $112,000 claim for those losses.

State lawmakers set aside $350,000 for the Wolf Depredation Compensation Fund in the most recent fiscal year and $175,000 for the year prior. Including the payments approved Wednesday, the state has paid $348,906 in wolf compensation claims since the reintroduction began.

CPW also reimburses landowners for damage to livestock, crops and property caused by big-game species, like bears, mountain lions and elk. In the 2023 fiscal year, the agency paid $403,602 for livestock killed or injured by predators other than wolves. It also paid $322,229 to farmers for crops damaged by wildlife like elk and deer.

While the big-game damage program is funded through hunting license sales, money for the wolf depredation compensation fund is sourced through the state’s general fund, the Species Conservation Trust Fund, and the Colorado Nongame Conservation and Wildlife Restoration Cash Fund.

Wolves in Colorado have killed 19 head of cattle, nine sheep and one llama since the reintroduction process began in December 2023, according to CPW. Wolves that migrated from Wyoming killed 13 head of cattle, three sheep and three dogs prior to the reintroduction.

Thirty known wolves currently roam Colorado — including 15 released by CPW in January and an uncollared wolf reported last month in Moffat County. Twenty-eight of the wolves are collared, CPW Wolf Conservation Program Manager Eric Odell told the commission Wednesday.

Some of the wolves are traveling in pairs and agency biologists will know by mid-April whether any of the wolves have bred, he said.

“We certainly expect for there to be some reproduction this year, but we don’t know,” Odell said.

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Senate Bill 3 passed the state Senate last month after coming in for some heavy amendments that would allow otherwise-banned guns to be sold to people who complete training and a background check. The measure is set for a first committee vote in the House on Tuesday before it moves to the full chamber.

Though Republicans have promised to fight the bill and gun-rights groups have pledged to sue, should it pass, the proposal has sufficient Democratic support to clear the legislature and head to Gov. Jared Polis.

Polis, a Democrat, was leery of the stronger version of the bill but is now expected to sign it, said Rep. Andrew Boesenecker, a Fort Collins Democrat and one of the bill’s sponsors. The measure would be the most sweeping gun-control law adopted in the state, even amid Democrats’ many recent efforts to tighten firearm regulations in Colorado.

Here’s a closer look at the bill — and the debate around it.

What exactly would the bill do?

Now that’s it been amended, SB-3 would generally limit the sale of certain semiautomatic firearms that accept detachable magazines and are gas-operated. That applies to the group of guns that are colloquially known as “assault weapons,” such as the AR-15 rifle.

There are loopholes. At the behest of Polis and some moderate Senate Democrats, the bill was amended so it would still allow people to purchase the otherwise-banned firearms under certain conditions. If buyers had previously passed a hunter’s education course, they would need to take a four-hour training session. If they hadn’t, they’d need a 12-hour course.

They would then need to be fingerprinted and background-checked by their county sheriff in a process that’s identical to obtaining a concealed-carry permit. That process includes ensuring a person doesn’t have a substance-use disorder and isn’t the subject of a protection order, among other things. The sheriff can also determine if people are a danger to themselves or others; if they are, the sheriff can withhold approval cards.

The measure would ban firearm components that make semiautomatic weapons fire faster. That includes bump stocks, which were briefly banned federally after they were used in the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, America’s deadliest mass shooting. The sale of those components would be banned flat out, regardless of a person’s training or vetting.

Where does Polis stand?

Asked by The Denver Post if the governor now supported the bill, a Polis spokesman said the governor “appreciates” that lawmakers worked with his office on amendments to address gun violence and uphold “our freedom and Colorado’s rich hunting and sport shooting culture.”

Would the bill outlaw possession or require people to turn over their guns?

No. The bill applies only to the sale, purchase, transfer and manufacture of the weapons. It would not be illegal to possess any of the banned firearms, and anyone who owns them now — or before the law would go into effect on Sept. 1 — would be able to keep them without any additional training required.

Gun stores have warned that the proposal would harm their businesses, given the popularity of the AR-15 and other covered guns, though the exemptions would still allow them to be sold to approved customers.

Which guns are covered?

The bill applies mostly to gas-operated, semiautomatic weapons that accept detachable magazines. That essentially covers most — if not all — of the so-called assault weapons common in mass shootings, like the AR-15 and similar guns, two experts told The Post.

Those weapons work by recycling the gas created when the bullet is fired to then cycle the gun and ready it to fire again. They also generally take detachable magazines — which can be rapidly swapped out and, in the case of high-capacity magazines, have been banned in the state for more than a decade.

Another amendment added in the Senate exempted a list of common rifles, some of which are used for hunting. Those include some guns that are old enough to have seen action in World War II. But it also includes weapons that are substantially similar to the AR-15, said Aaron Brudenell, a forensic science consultant and firearms expert who conducts trainings for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Broadly speaking, the bill wouldn’t apply to common handguns, revolvers or shotguns. Most common semiautomatic pistols — like Glocks — are operated by their own recoil, not recycled gas, and thus wouldn’t be covered.

But the bill sponsors are also seeking to curtail pistol variants of the AR-15, the measure would cover some handguns, like James Bond’s Walther PPK. Those handguns use the same operating system as AR-variant pistols, like the one used by the shooter at the Boulder King Soopers in 2021, and would thus be caught in the crossfire of the bill’s efforts to block those weapons.

Brudenell questioned whether the bill could be stretched to cover other common handguns, though the bill’s sponsors and advocates have been adamant it would not.

Boesenecker acknowledged that “a relatively small portion of the (handgun) market” would be covered by the bill, but he said those guns have available alternatives that wouldn’t be affected.

So, then, is this a ban?

That’s a tricky question. The bill was initially described by its sponsors as a way to enforce the state’s 2013 high-capacity magazine ban. But now that the bill would still allow weapons that accept those components to be sold, that argument has lost some ground.

It’s also not quite a ban, since Coloradans could buy AR-15s under the law so long as they passed a training requirement and background vetting.

But such an argument won’t assuage gun-rights groups, which argue that their ability to purchase firearms shouldn’t be infringed at all.

And the loopholes have led to some teeth gritting from the bill’s supporters: After the measure was weakened in the Senate, the advocacy group Moms Demand Action said it “strongly preferred” the first version but was still happy with the bill’s present state.

How would Colorado’s law stack up?

A number of states have enacted bans on so-called assault weapons, and others have adopted vetting and training requirements before a person can purchase specific weapons, said Alison Shih, senior counsel for Everytown for Gun Safety, which is backing the bill.

“Many other states have some kind of permit-to-purchase (requirement) for firearms, and many of them have them for all firearms,” she said. “… A third of the U.S. population lives in a state that outright bans a subset of military-style firearms.”

SB-3 is unique in that it would limit the sale of those controversial firearms unless a person is trained and vetted, said Andrew Willinger, the executive director of the Center for Firearms Law at Duke University School of Law.

It’s also unique in that it focuses on certain components — like gas operation and detachable magazines, he said. Other states ban a list of specific weapons, and past unsuccessful bills in the Colorado legislature took that approach.

Is any of this constitutional?

Should this bill reach Polis’ desk and be signed into law, it would almost certainly be challenged immediately in court.

Willinger said the bill was likely on solid constitutional footing, even in a judicial system topped by a conservative U.S. Supreme Court that’s taken a more expansive view of the Second Amendment. The high court turned away recent challenges to other gun control bills — including a weapons ban and a permitting requirement — and lower courts have upheld the laws in other states, Willinger and Shih said.

Still, Shih and Willinger said they expected the Supreme Court to take up an assault weapons case at some point.

Willinger said the training and vetting requirements added in the Colorado Senate likely put the bill on even firmer ground under the Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen decision, which further expanded gun rights. (Shih said Everytown was confident the original bill would’ve been upheld, too.)

“I suspect the court will take a case like that at some point, but I think the analysis is really quite different when you think about the one Colorado is considering,” Willinger said. “You then basically have an argument that the state can make — that this is just akin to the type of objective licensing approach that states use for conceal-carry, for example. The only thing you have to do is just comply with the series of objective requirements, taking these classes and so on.”

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Federal investigators allege Jackson Outfitters is liable for the ignition of the Cow Creek Fire, which burned 850 acres in Colorado’s Uncompahgre National Forest in October 2019, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Federal officials believe the fire was caused by embers flying out of a wood-burning stove inside the hunting outfitter’s camp and igniting dry vegetation on the ground, according to the release.

Roy Jackson, a spokesman for the family-owned hunting company, said the claims against it are “unfounded.”

In agreeing to settle the matter, Jackson Outfitters did not admit any liability for the wildfire.

Jackson said in an emailed statement to the Denver Post that four hunters from Wisconsin had rented Jackson Outfitters’ Cow Creek site for a self-guided, four-day elk hunting tour.

The group of hunters spotted the fire about 300 yards up the hill from their camp at about 6:15 a.m. on Oct. 16, 2019, according to Jackson. The hunters told Jackson that they did not start the fire and they saw at least two other groups in the area shortly before it sparked.

In January 2022, more than two years after the fire started, Jackson said his company received a Notice of Indebtedness demanding that the hunting outlet and the group of Wisconsin hunters pay roughly $2.2 million in damages. The U.S. Attorney’s Office did not confirm this number.

“Jackson Outfitters denies that its actions, or the actions of the hunters, caused the Cow Creek Fire,” Jackson said in the statement. “Nevertheless, in order to continue to operate its business within the Uncompahgre National Forest and in consideration of its permit with the USDA Forest Service coming up for renewal, Jackson Outfitters and its insurer agreed to settle the case against the company for $500,000.”

Jackson said the stove had a functioning spark arrestor and the hunters were encouraged to use it, but officials with the U.S. Attorney’s Office claim it did not.

A spark arrestor allows gases to escape a stove or chimney while preventing embers and sparks from escaping.

“Outfitters must ensure that the equipment they use in National Forests is safe and protects public lands for all of us,” acting U.S. Attorney J. Bishop Grewell said in the release. “We appreciate that this resolution was cooperative and reimburses the United States for costs incurred in fighting the fire.”

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When lawmakers first took to the Senate floor for a day of lengthy debate Thursday, Senate Bill 3 would’ve prohibited the sale or transfer of semiautomatic firearms that accept detachable magazines. That ban would have covered a large — if not total — swath of weapons that are colloquially considered assault weapons, though it wouldn’t have included most common handguns and shotguns.

By the time the Senate passed the bill on an 18-15 party-line vote just before 2 a.m. Friday, it had been altered. Now it would still allow the targeted weapons to be sold to people who completed at least four hours of training, passed an exam and went through a vetting process similar to that required to obtain a concealed-carry permit.

Those who completed the requirements would have to redo them every five years if they wished to buy more weapons.

The amendment was hammered out between the bill’s Democratic sponsors and Polis’ staff in a deal that didn’t come fully into shape until late Thursday night, after hours — on top of weeks — of negotiations and what Sen. Julie Gonzales, one of the bill’s sponsors, called “a game of (expletive) chicken.”

“We spent quite a bit of time these last several weeks trying to get (the bill) to a space where we could be inclusive to everyone who was having concerns,” the bill’s other sponsor, Centennial Democratic Sen. Tom Sullivan, said shortly before the vote on the bill. “That’s how it is that we ended up with the amendments that we did. That’s how we ended up with the late night, to make sure that our hunters and sportsmen — that we were listening to them.”

Late last week, Polis spokeswoman Shelby Wieman wrote in a statement to The Denver Post after an earlier bill delay that while the Democratic governor supported gun-violence prevention legislation, he wanted to ensure “that we are protecting Coloradans’ Second Amendment rights and respecting our state’s long standing traditions of hunting and sport shooting.”

The now-amended bill, which does not prohibit the possession of any firearms and would not take away guns that people already own, is set for a final vote in the Senate on Tuesday. It will then move to the House.

“A step towards strengthening” gun laws

Sullivan said passing the amended bill was the right thing to do and that he supported it.

He started and ended the day’s debate by holding up images of the 100-round magazine that had been used by the 2012 Aurora theater shooter to kill 12 people, including Sullivan’s son, Alex.

In a statement Friday afternoon, Kathy Hagen of the Colorado chapter of Moms Demand Action — a gun-control group backing the measure — said the group “strongly preferred” the original bill, but that the revised version “continues to be a step towards strengthening our state’s gun laws.”

The late loophole was the result of converging dynamics.

One was opposition from Polis, whose staff had spent weeks trying to loosen the bill’s initial intent to ban a significant swath of firearms. A handful of Democratic senators had said they wouldn’t support the bill as written: Some were flatly opposed, and others supported the carveout sought by the governor. A first vote on the bill, scheduled for Feb. 7, had been delayed to allow for more negotiations.

The other dynamic was an absent senator. No such deal with Polis had been reached by Thursday morning, and Gonzales and Sullivan — who felt they had the votes even with a handful of holdouts — decided to press forward.

But Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis, an embattled Longmont Democrat, was excused from the Senate for the day for medical reasons.

Her absence meant the bill was one vote short, forcing the sponsors to make a choice: Seek a deal with Polis, delay again or try to flip a holdout.

After the Senate spent the first half of Thursday debating a contentious labor unions bill (which is also opposed by Polis), Sullivan and Gonzales arrived at option one that night. Republicans had spent much of the previous four hours filibustering, in part to express legitimate opposition to the bill and in part to give space for negotiations to continue.

Jaquez Lewis did not return a text seeking comment Thursday. She is currently under investigation for allegedly mistreating her aides. The ethics committee investigating her, which will deliberate next week and could ultimately seek her expulsion from the legislature, is chaired by Gonzales.

More details on bill changes

Under the gun bill’s newly negotiated terms, a person could still buy otherwise-banned weapons under certain conditions. If the person has previously completed a hunter’s safety course, they then would need to take a four-hour class and pass both an exam and a background check.

If they haven’t completed hunter’s safety, then they would need to take a 12-hour course, then the exam and the background vetting.

Another amendment passed late Thursday exempted a slew of common hunting rifles from the proposed ban, plus some firearms that are old enough to have seen service in World War II.

The carveouts did not change opposition from the Senate’s minority Republican caucus. After the deal was announced, Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen said the training requirements sought to make a right — that of owning firearms — into a privilege.

Throughout the day, Senate Republicans had said the bill violated the 2nd Amendment — which Sen. John Carson of Highlands Ranch quoted from the chamber’s floor — and that it would do little to stop gun violence.

The bill “is far more sweeping than anything we’ve seen in this country,” Sen. Lisa Frizell, a Castle Rock Republican, said Thursday afternoon. “… Unfortunately, we are still not addressing the problems that are causing these really horrific mass shootings. And they are — they’re tragedies. … But those aren’t happening because of a gun. It’s happening because the person pulling the trigger is suffering from mental illness.”

Though the changes place the bill on a path to Polis’ desk, the training carveout resettles the measure into a new orientation.

Initially, supporters pitched the bill as a way to enforce the state’s decade-old ban on high-capacity magazines. Sullivan began Thursday’s debate by accusing gun shops of ignoring that ban, and he pointed to recent mass shootings — at the Boulder King Soopers and Colorado Springs’ Club Q — as examples of gunmen who’d obtained the magazines anyway.

But with the compromise amendment, the bill now has less to do with escalating enforcement of the magazine ban, as it would still allow gun stores to sell weapons that use the magazines to certain buyers.

Shortly before midnight Thursday, Gonzales acknowledged that the bill’s intent had shifted in some ways. She said it would still significantly limit the sale of certain high-powered weapons.

Ultimately, she said, the bill “is about stopping the next mass shooting.”

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Gov. Jared Polis announced the collaboration involving CPW, the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, nearby municipalities, counties and other agencies last week in his annual State of the State message.

The nonprofit Pikes Peak Outdoor Recreation Alliance (PPORA) had campaigned for CPW management of federal lands adjacent to the 14,107-foot mountain, which have been adversely impacted by high visitation pressures and federal funding challenges.

“This is just the first step in a multi-year plan to improve and expand world-class recreation opportunities like camping, fishing, hiking and more on the majestic mountain in a way that benefits the landscape, our way of life and local economy,” Polis said. “Anyone who visits our state parks knows exactly what CPW is capable of delivering.”

The concept was inspired by an existing model. CPW already manages camping, fishing and hiking in the Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area, a 150-mile stretch of mostly federal land along the Arkansas River from Leadville to Pueblo.

Issues on public lands on and around Pikes Peak in recent years have included discarded trash, dumping, user conflicts, resource damage and overwhelmed restroom facilities.

“Our community has said this is a very special place, and we really need exceptional natural resource conservation,” said Becky Leinweber, executive director of the PPORA, in an interview. “At the same time, we need exceptional recreational opportunities. We have people retiring here, we have people visiting and moving for that reason, and that’s only going to increase.

We have some amazing land managers in multiple jurisdictions, but resources have been challenging,” she continued. “Resources are going down when the need and use are going up. How do we provide exceptional management so we have these great places preserved and to be enjoyed?”

CPW’s first priority is the completion of the Ring the Peak trail around Pikes Peak. Ultimately the trail will measure approximately 95 miles, with 63 miles already in place, according to Mike Rigney, project manager for Ring the Peak. CPW would take over the development and management of the trail.

“We think CPW is a great galvanizing organization that everyone can get behind to coordinate and help manage the project,” said Glenn Carlson, executive director of the region’s Trails & Open Space Coalition. “There are lots of jurisdictions, government entities, non-government entities, forest service, BLM, private landowners. To have one entity that is able to pull everybody together and keep driving this, keep pulling it forward, I think is a critical aspect of it.”

Completion of the trail, which has been a dream of recreation users in the area for two decades, may require the realignment of some existing trails. Routing the trail where there is now a 26-mile gap also has yet to be determined, but Leinweber welcomes CPW’s involvement.

“They are committed to exploring getting this trail completed, and that would be amazing for this area,” Leinweber said. “I’m excited to say this because 18 months ago, I couldn’t have said I think we’re going to see a completed Ring the Peak trail corridor. Now I can say that with some real confidence, we’re going to get this done and we’re going to do it right.”

Leinweber said she expects CPW to develop additional camping in the area as well. “Their funding is largely user-based. Day passes, campgrounds, is what funds a lot of what they do. They will be looking for appropriate areas to do some developed camping. On Pikes Peak, that is a need. I think it will be great to have some additional camping opportunities for folks.”

Federal protections and regulations still will govern the management of forest service and BLM lands under CPW management.

“There are still federal processes that are in place, so even with a partnering manager who may see that there needs to be recreational development such as camping in an area, those federal regulations are still in place and have to be followed,” Leinweber said. “There is no land transfer. There’s no change in ownership.”

In 2020, Polis signed an executive order creating the Regional Partnerships Initiative. Funded by CPW and Great Outdoors Colorado, regional partnerships bring together interest groups and public land managers to balance management, conservation and recreation while relying heavily on local input. The PPORA was one of the first to be created in the state. Now there are 20. Others include NoCo Places, which is exploring land management ideas for northern Colorado, the Summit County Outdoor Coalition, the West Slope Outdoors Alliance and the Eagle County Community Wildlife Roundtable.

“It’s not a top-down process where the state dictates what needs to happen,” Leinweber said. “They recognize local communities can best decide the priorities and values for their local communities.”

On Pikes Peak that will mean balancing the wishes not just of hikers, mountain bikers and campers, but hunters and anglers, too. CPW already manages hunting on forest service land across Colorado.

“To me, it’s a treasured mountain,” Carlson said. “It’s incredibly diverse habitat. You can hike on it, you can ride your mountain bike. You can also get into prime outdoor habitat if hunting and fishing are what you enjoy. I’m an outdoorsman, so I think the wildlife aspect of it is critical. There’s bighorn sheep up there, elk, you name it. That aspect needs to be looked out for.”

CPW’s responsibility will be similar to that of the forest service — managing public land for multiple uses.

“It’s not easy work because all these people have different perspectives, different goals, but there are a lot of similarities with lots of overlap,” Leinweber said of the interest groups PPORA represents. “At the end of the day, I think we all want the same thing. We want beautiful robust natural places and wildlife. We also want opportunities to enjoy them. Working together is what this is all about. It’s collaboration at its core.”

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The incident occurred Dec. 9 in Lunenburg County, which is between Richmond and Danville, Virginia’s Department of Wildlife Resources said in a statement.

A hunting group was following the bear when it ran up the tree, the department said. As the group retreated from the tree, a hunter shot the bear. The animal fell onto another hunter who was standing about 10 feet (3 meters) from the bottom of the tree.

The department identified the man as Lester C. Harvey, 58, of Phenix, Virginia. A member of the group rendered first aid before Harvey was rushed to two different hospitals. He died from his injuries Friday, the wildlife department stated.

An obituary for Harvey, a married father of five with eight grandchildren, said he was a self-employed contractor and avid outdoorsman.

Similar incidents have occurred in recent years.

In 2018, a man in Alaska was critically injured after his hunting partner shot a bear on a ridge. The animal tumbled down a slope into the man, who was also struck by rocks dislodged by the bear.

Another man was injured in 2019 after his hunting partner shot a bear in a tree in North Carolina. The bear fell out of the tree and began biting the hunter. The man and the animal then tumbled off a cliff. The hunter was taken to a hospital, while the bear was later found dead.

Lance Walker of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was separated from his hunting group Oct. 30 while navigating the north side of the park in Saguache County, according to a statement from Alamosa Volunteer Search and Rescue.

The next morning, when Walker failed to show up at their camp, other members of the group used a satellite communicator to alert rescuers. Walker’s brother went out to search for him on foot.

Later that day, Walker’s brother informed rescuers that he had located the body, and more than 20 members of search and rescue teams from three counties responded to the area. Walker’s body was extracted Nov. 1 with support from national park and state personnel as well as REACH Air Medical Services.

“We cannot thank enough all the responding teams and assets for their help in getting this man home to his family after such a tragic accident,” Alamosa Volunteer Search and Rescue said in its statement.

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Of more than 2.5 million votes tallied by Wednesday evening, 55.5% were in opposition to Proposition 127 and 44.5% were in support. The Associated Press declared that the proposition had failed.

Only six of Colorado’s 64 counties showed a majority of voters in support of banning wild cat hunting: Denver, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, San Juan and San Miguel counties.

Proposition 127 would have banned the regulated hunting of mountain lions and bobcats, though Colorado Parks and Wildlife and regular citizens still would have been able to legally kill animals that became a threat, in certain situations. The state’s wildlife agency has regulated cat hunting since 1965.

ELECTION RESULTS: Live Colorado election results for the 2024 election

Advocates for banning the hunt previously tried to ban bobcat hunting through a petition to the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission in 2019 and to ban bobcat and mountain lion through a bill in the state legislature in 2022. Both efforts failed.

Those who supported the cat hunting ban said the methods to hunt mountain lions and bobcats were unethical and that hunting was unnecessary to regulate cat populations. They also asserted that mountain lion hunters were primarily seeking a trophy head or pelt and were not hunting the animal for the meat. Therefore, the hunting of the species should be considered trophy hunting and banned, proponents have argued.

Leaders of Cats Aren’t Trophies — the primary organization behind Proposition 127 — in a statement Wednesday urged Colorado Parks and Wildlife to end the use of dogs in mountain lion hunting and the use of baited traps on bobcats. They framed the loss as voters rejecting the use of the ballot box to decide wildlife management policy.

“The agency operates at its peril by stonewalling on obvious reforms to protect wild cats,” Cats Aren’t Trophies campaign director Sam Miller said. “The vote was anything but a mandate on baiting, trapping and hounding — it was a vote of deference to the agency to take action itself.”

Opponents of the hunting ban said Colorado Parks and Wildlife should decide how to manage wildlife populations — not voters. They also disputed that mountain lion hunting was trophy hunting because state law requires that mountain lion meat be prepared for consumption.

“This result reflects the voices of those who recognize the importance of letting wildlife experts, not the ballot box, guide decisions on the conservation of Colorado’s big cats,” Dan Gates, chairman of opposition group Colorado Wildlife Deserves Better and president of the Colorado Trappers and Predator Hunters Association, said in a news release. “By rejecting this misguided initiative, voters have ensured that our state’s ecosystem can continue to thrive under the careful stewardship of Colorado Parks and Wildlife.”

CPW estimates that between 3,800 and 4,400 mountain lions live in the state. The wildlife agency says the population is strong and abundant.

Though there is no estimated number of bobcats in Colorado, state wildlife officials say the population is healthy and may be increasing in some areas.

Neither species is listed as threatened or endangered in the U.S.

Hunters can purchase a license to hunt a single mountain lion and a different license to hunt an unlimited number of bobcats. On average, hunters have killed 505 mountain lions and 831 bobcats annually over the last three years, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife data.

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