While Colorado Parks & Wildlife is prohibited from taking a stance on ballot initiatives, a group of the agency’s employees is speaking out as Proposition 127 — a measure that would ban the hunting of mountain lions, bobcats and lynx — heads toward a vote in November. 

The Colorado Wildlife Employees Protective Association board signed a resolution on Oct. 9 expressing that decisions about wildlife should be left to Colorado Parks & Wildlife’s science-based professionals. The association represents around 200 current agency wildlife officers, biologists, wildlife technicians, aquatics staff, administrative assistants as well as education and outreach personnel. As a whole, Parks & Wildlife has over 1,000 employees, with its park employees represented by another association.

“Colorado’s wildlife story is written because of our membership and those who have come before us have devoted our careers to following the best available research and proven wildlife management strategies,” stated Casey Westbrook, the association’s president and a district wildlife manager with Parks & Wildlife, in a release. “Keeping management with wildlife managers is key to protecting Colorado’s wildlife for future generations.”

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The association’s resolution and release do not directly reference Proposition 127, but in an interview with The Vail Daily, Westbrook said the measure “initiated our need to have a resolution to explain where we’re at.” 

“We didn’t call out that specific proposition because this is a stance that applies on a broader scale than a single proposition,” he said, adding that it speaks to a trend where wildlife issues are proposed and fail in existing rulemaking processes only to be taken up by interest groups and brought to a ballot. 

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Proponents of Proposition 127 argue that the ballot measure does not take management of the cats from Parks & Wildlife. Rather, they argue that it seeks to eliminate hunting, something which they say is an ineffective and unnecessary form of wildlife management as well as an unethical, recreational activity. 

“Colorado Parks & Wildlife will continue to manage wildlife involved in conflicts and for healthy ecosystems should Coloradans vote “yes” on 127 to protect cats from trophy hunting and fur trapping,” stated Samantha Miller, campaign manager for Cats Aren’t Trophies, in response to the resolution. “Prop 127 only eliminates mountain lion trophy hunting with hounds and fur trapping of bobcats, both are only considered recreation by (Parks & Wildlife), and serve no management purpose.”

This resolution is the first in the membership’s 77-year history, which Westbrook said “speaks to how important this issue is to us.”  

Lauren Truitt, a former Parks & Wildlife assistant director of information and education who is serving as the association’s spokesperson on the matter, said “there is a significant amount of pressure on the agency not to say anything about their management strategies as it pertains to this ballot initiative.” 

The employee resolution states that citizens have “fair and equitable opportunities” through the state legislature and Parks & Wildlife Commission to express their opinions on how wildlife is managed.

“The challenge with a ballot initiative on something so significant like this is (that) the complexities get lost in the nuances of wildlife management and the work that the agency and the staff do,” Truitt said, speaking to Proposition 127. “This ballot initiative would strip the agency of some of their management authority and their ability to use regulated hunting as a strategy.”

In its campaign, Cats Aren’t Trophies argues that science and research show that natural forces — prey and habitat availability — are what drives healthy populations of the animals, not hunting. A group of 22 wildlife biologists — including Jane Goodall, professors and former National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and other agency employees — support Proposition 127. The group wrote a letter stating that hunting is not necessary to manage the cats. 

The resolution also props up the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation, which was created by sportsmen and conservationists and is used by Parks & Wildlife and all state and federal wildlife agencies. The model has seven tenants, including several relating to hunting. 

Both supporters and opponents of Proposition 127 argue that this model supports their position on the measure. 

“It brought wildlife back from the brink of extinction to (where) we now have wildlife expanding their ranges across the United States,” Truitt said. “That is what (Colorado Parks & Wildlife) bases their management strategies and research strategies against, and (Proposition 127) just chips away more and more at those tenants, which sets a dangerous precedent.”

Richard Reading — the Butterfly Pavilion’s vice president of science and conservation who sits on the Colorado Parks & Wildlife Commission and has expressed personal support for the ballot measure — wrote in an editorial stating, if you support this conservation model, “you must vote yes on Proposition 127.” 

“That model, much heralded for its conservation successes, clearly states that hunting must involve ‘fair chase,”’ and that wildlife cannot be commodified,” Reading states, pointing to arguments about how lions and bobcats hunted today is unethical. 

While the wildlife agency cannot come out in support or opposition to ballot measures, it will be required to implement the will of the voters — as was the case in 2020, when voters mandated that Parks & Wildlife reintroduce gray wolves. 

“With (Proposition 114), again, you’ve got a public voting something in, which is alright as a democracy, but the staff is underwater with the wolf reintroduction,” Truitt said. “You add another ballot initiative, another directive on their plate that just detracts from what they’re really trying to do and it just strains their resources. It stretches them so thin.”

Ballots were mailed starting on Oct. 11. Election Day is Nov. 5.