Coloradans rejected a proposed ban on mountain lion and bobcat hunting — a hit for wildlife advocates who have worked to outlaw or change the practice for years.
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.
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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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