The rights of hunters and anglers in Colorado have been in the crosshairs of the Jared Polis administration since the governor took office in 2019. Polis, a Democrat, drew the ire of the hunting community last year when he appointed to the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission two new wildlife commissioners who have deep ties to the anti-hunting animal rights movement. Both commissioners were confirmed by the Colorado Senate.

“It is extremely disheartening to see the Colorado state senate capitulating to the governor’s personal agenda despite widespread disapproval of his nominees,” said Brody Henderson of the outdoor lifestyle publication MeatEater. “Not only are these people outspoken anti-hunting animal rights activists, they are both completely unqualified to oversee a state management agency. Governor Polis has made it clear he wants to seize control of Colorado Parks and Wildlife. The result will be a crippling blow [to] science based wildlife management.”

Seizing upon the rising tide against the state’s outdoorsmen in the governor’s mansion as well as in Colorado’s metropolitan areas, anti-hunting group Cats Aren’t Trophies collected enough signatures to bring Proposition 127, which would ban the hunting of bobcats, lynx, and mountain lions, if successful, to the ballot on November 5.

Surprisingly, considering his past stances on hunting-related issues, and the work of his legal spouse, anti-hunting activist Marlon Reis, Governor Polis has taken a neutral position on the proposal. “Whether this passes or not, I’m confident that Colorado Parks and Wildlife will be able to continue to manage our wildlife effectively to ensure ecological diversity with plenty of opportunities for big game hunting,” said Polis. “I would love to hear what others think on this one, and I probably won’t have a strong opinion one way or the other, but will certainly work to successfully implement the will of the voters either way. I am NEUTRAL ON PROPOSITION 127.”

Animal rights groups have successfully used what has been dubbed by critics as “ballot-box biology” in the past. Coloradans voted to ban spring black bear hunting in 1992 and to reintroduce wolves to the western half of the state in 2020.

Like ballot-box economics, which has resulted in Americans facing the unenviable choice between the tariffs and price controls proposed by the two major party candidates this presidential election, ballot-box biology fails to bring about desirable outcomes wherever it is tried. Markets can take care of themselves, and, novel idea: wildlife biologists understand how to manage game populations better than uninformed urban voters.

The greatest fear regarding Proposition 127 among the hunting community is the language around what is deemed “trophy hunting.” The ballot measure defines the term as the act of pursuing or killing an animal, leading hunters to assume the anti-hunting movement won’t stop with banning the harvest of big cats.

“Mountain lion and bobcat hunting are the low-hanging fruit here,” Dan Gates with Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management told MeatEater. “But it’s hunting as a whole that’s on the chopping block.” MeatEater asks, “With such a sweeping definition of what trophy hunting is, what’s stopping the same language from being applied to elk, deer, mountain goats, or any other game animals? ‘This isn’t about species, or methods of take, or states,’ [Gates] said, ‘this is about hunting.’”

The push for Proposition 127 by animal rights groups is rife with misinformation. They claim so-called “trophy hunting” is “practiced primarily for the display of an animal’s head, fur or other body parts, rather than for utilization of the meat,” which is not only false on its face but illegal under state law. Lynx, the third animal subject to a hunting ban by the ballot initiative alongside bobcats and mountain lions, are already a federally protected species that cannot be hunted in the lower 48.

Wherever predator hunting has been banned, there have been upticks in the number of encounters between predators and humans. New Jersey recently lifted a ban on bear hunting after the number of bear encounters skyrocketed in the Garden State. “I feel awful,” said Governor Phil Murphy, “but I can’t violate what are obvious facts that are potentially undermining public safety, particularly among kids. I just can’t in good conscience go on in this direction.”

Twenty-one-year-old hunter Taylen Brooks was killed in California this year by a mountain lion while shed hunting (looking for shed deer antlers) with his brother Wyatt, who survived only because of Taylen’s heroics. Over 100 lions are killed annually in California due to threats to humans, pets, and livestock. Californians have been banned from hunting mountain lions since an anti-cat hunting ballot initiative passed in 1990.

H. L. Mencken said, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” The problem with making wildlife management decisions democratically is that the vast majority of Americans have little to no connection to wildlife, especially apex predators. If urban Denverites were to override the wildlife management decisions of both citizens living in rural areas and the biologists who best know how to manage game populations, it would not only be an affront to the individual liberties that are the birthright of all American citizens, but it would also inevitably have deadly consequences.