Amendment 83 Will Upend Wildlife Policy, Say Wildlife Scientists, Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commissioners, Legal Scholars, and Elected Officials

A poll from the American Political Research Lab at the University of Colorado reveals that support for Amendment 83 has dropped below 50 percent, with 48% favoring it, 33% opposing it, and 19% undecided. An independent poll from a different outfit from July had Amendment 83 with 62% support, so support for the measure, to create a constitutional right to hunt and trap in Colorado, has dropped more than 14%. Momentum is on our side.

I’ve worked on dozens of ballot measure campaigns, and when the “yes” side drops below 50%, it shows that the measure is in extreme danger.  With any constitutional amendment requiring a 55% supermajority in Colorado, it creates an even more dire circumstance for the proponents of Amendment 83. Yet with nearly 20% of likely voters undecided, according to the poll, how they break will determine the outcome. 

Trophy hunting groups are seeing similar, or even worse, results.  That’s why in the last two weeks, they’ve dumped massive money into the campaign to finance a blitz of deceptive TV ads, mailers, social media posts, texts, yard signs, billboards, robocalls, and more.

The T. Roosevelt Conservation Alliance and T.R. Action have donated $1,727,000 since inception, with another dump of $115,000 yesterday. GO PAC, a Republican political action committee, has washed a $475,000 donation from trophy hunting interests, and sent that in last week. 

Safari Club International, a group that sponsors competitions for its members to kill the world’s most remarkable, and often rarest, species, announced $365,000 in giving last week. The Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus Foundation, mainly funded by arms and ammunition makers, upped the ante with $350,000 at about the same time, while the Hunter Action Fund in Texas gave a cool $150,000.

In all, these out-of-state groups have pumped $4 million into the state. Dan Gates, the commercial trapper leading their campaign, told the Cowboy State Daily that he is pushing Amendment 83 to bring back bear baiting, hound hunting, and spring bear hunting in the state.

Money Alone Does Not Buy Elections

There is an enormous coalition of wildlife scientists, Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commissioners, legal scholars, civic and good government organizations, newspaper editorial boards, gun safety groups, public-lands advocates, and conservation, animal welfare, and responsible hunting groups opposing this overreaching measure. 

Referring to the voter-approved restrictions on cruel steel-jawed leghold traps and bear baiting, the conservative Grand Junction Daily Sentinel editorial board said hunting methods “that voters have already outlawed could be ripe for legal challenges to reinstate them. Or lawsuits could block future wildlife protections.” 

The Durango Herald, also a paper on the state’s more conservative and rural Western Slope, opposes Amendment 83 and said “an undefined right to ‘traditional methods’ puts bans on bear baiting and leghold traps at risk.”

The Denver Post, in strenuously opposing Amendment 83, said it is “a lawsuit waiting to happen every time CPW officials make a decision that the hunting community disagrees with.” It added that Amendment 83 “could interfere with the ability of Colorado Parks and Wildlife to manage our animal populations” and “risks the future of hunting and fishing for everyone else.”

CPW Commissioner Rich Reading, PhD, a wildlife ecologist and former chairman of the commission, said Amendment 83 “could roll back decades of management actions led by the wildlife professionals at Colorado Parks and Wildlife and by citizens through previous ballot initiatives.” Current CPW chairman Jay Tutchton said “it’ll be a lawyer bonanza” and Amendment 83 will be “wildlife management decided by lawsuit.”

“The central problem is not that the amendment protects hunting. It is that the terms it uses are so open-ended that no one can predict how courts will apply them,” said Jess Beaulieu, an attorney at the University of Denver in her September 23^rd analysis. Beaulieu also serves on the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission.

Gov. Jared Polis called Amendment 83 “dangerous,” and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser told The Coloradoan that the constitutional amendment will “create mischief” and is “an invitation to litigation, to uncertainty and confusion.”

A majority of Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commissioners, dozens of bear biologists, human health and wildlife health experts on lead ammunition, and good government groups like the League of Women Voters of Colorado have warned against the measure and its far-reaching effects. 

The League of Women Voters of Colorado, the Colorado Education Association, Colorado Common Cause, Humane Colorado, Sierra Club, Denver Audubon, and Colorado Hunters and Anglers for Sensible Wildlife Conservation all oppose Amendment 83.

“I am very proud to live in a state that has established an ethical system for regulated hunting that follows the Fair Chase rules pioneered by Theodore Roosevelt over a century ago by banning certain cruel and unethical wildlife killing practices like leghold traps, wildlife killing contests and bear baiting,” notes Eric Washburn, a leader with Colorado Hunters and Anglers for Sensible Wildlife Conservation.

“Amendment 83 would reverse this progress and bring back these cruel and unethical practices by putting them into our Constitution, undermining public support for hunting and endangering the sport that I and so many other Coloradans love,” adds the Steamboat Springs-based lifelong hunter and fifth-generation Coloradan. 

For more information on the ballot measure, including the vast set of other endorsers of No on 83, go to www.VoteNo83.org.