The hunting of mountain lions and bobcats will remain legal in Colorado after voters rejected a proposition that would have banned the practice. 

While election results are still unofficial, the Associated Press called the race at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday. 

By midday Wednesday, Proposition 127 was failing by just over 270,000 votes with about 56% of the votes counted against it. Nearly all Colorado counties rejected the measure, aside from four on the Front Range and two in the southwest corner of the state.

The proposal would have made hunting of mountain lions, bobcats and lynx a Class 1 misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail, a fine of up to $1,000, or both. Exceptions would have been made for cats endangering the lives of people or livestock and for certain accidental deaths. 

Currently, Colorado Parks and Wildlife issues a certain number of hunting licenses for mountain lions. Bobcats are classified as a “furbearer” species and are also hunted. It is already illegal to hunt lynx as they are protected both at the state and federal levels. With the measure voted down, the agency will continue management under this status quo. 

Casey Westbrook, a district wildlife manager for Colorado Parks and Wildlife and president of the Colorado Wildlife Employees Protective Association board, said he was feeling gratitude for the measure’s failure. 

“(I’m grateful) that people understood the message that we were trying to give: that there’s complexity to this, and there’s a lot of science — both social science and biological science — that needs to be applied and that it didn’t pass just on heartstring-type pleas,” Westbrook said. “Egotistically, I think it shows some faith in the people that work for Colorado Parks and Wildlife and that are members of our organization that we actually know what we’re doing”

Parks and Wildlife was barred by state law from speaking out for or against the measure. However, the Colorado Wildlife Employees Protective Association passed the first resolution in its 77-year history in October, insisting that decisions about wildlife should be left to the agency’s staff and existing processes. While the resolution addressed issues beyond Proposition 127, the ballot measure inspired the call by the group, which represents around 200 of the agency’s wildlife-related staff. 

Cats Aren’t Trophies, the citizen group that petitioned to get Proposition 127 on the ballot, maintains that the current hunting methods for these wild cats are cruel, unethical, recreational and not necessary to successfully manage the species.