Yet another stalking horse for the national animal-rights movement is galloping toward Colorado’s statewide ballot.

It’s another proposal to manipulate the uninformed sympathies of Colorado’s predominantly urban and suburban voters — and undermine our state’s well-run and carefully balanced system of wildlife management. It’s yet another policy that disregards the wisdom of Colorado’s wildlife experts and tramples their regulatory authority. It’s another attempt at what critics rightly call “ballot-box biology” — that ultimately will backfire on our state.

Last time, it was a measure authored and bankrolled by out-of-state interests to reintroduce gray wolves — to the detriment of, among others, the livestock producers who put dinner on the table for most Colorado households. Their herds of cattle and sheep are now prey following that proposal’s razor-thin margin of victory in November 2020.

This time, it’s a ballot pitch that aims to unleash another apex predator, the mountain lion, wreaking havoc with our state’s expertly managed ecosystem.

Unlike wolves, mountain lions already abound in Colorado. They are not endangered or threatened. Yet, the tentatively titled Initiative 91, pushed by the group Cats Aren’t Trophies, would ban hunting of mountain lions and bobcats in the state.

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As The Gazette reported last week, the effort’s backers have turned in petitions they circulated among voters in a bid to place the proposal on the November ballot. The Secretary of State’s Office now has 30 days to review the gathered signatures.

Most Coloradans always have lived in metropolitan areas; don’t hunt, and rarely encounter wildlife on the order of mountain lions. So, they may not realize hunting is a key component of effective and humane wildlife management. It’s about far more than trophies for hunters; it’s about keeping species populations in balance for the viability of wildlife overall.

Like other game hunting, the hunting of mountain lions in Colorado is strictly regulated by Colorado Parks and Wildlife — the state government agency that has rigorously and successfully managed the state’s abundant wildlife for generations. CPW limits the number of mountain lion tags it issues to hunters every season and first requires hunters to take and pass an exam to acquire a Mountain Lion Education Certificate.

Initiative 91’s arbitrary ban would upend generations of thoughtful and proactive regulation by the state. It would override the scientific expertise of the wildlife biologists who oversee the system and the state commission of experts who long have governed it.

It would sidestep all that with an appeal to the general voting public based solely on sentiment. The initiative’s dogma-driven animal-rights activists and funders are betting most voters won’t realize the central role hunting plays in ensuring the welfare of mountain lions and other wildlife and keeping their population stable and sustainable.

It’s worth recalling Proposition 114, which introduced wolves, barely passed statewide and fared poorly in rural regions. But it won the overwhelming support of Front Range voters, who only had seen wolves on Animal Planet. Few of them ever had to make ends meet as do the financially strapped ranchers whose livestock are in harm’s way. Those ranchers and other Coloradans who live nearer to the land and who need it to survive — knew better and voted accordingly.

That’s why attempts to micromanage wildlife and second-guess the state’s experts on such matters don’t belong on the ballot in the first place. The proper venue for proposing and fine-tuning wildlife policy is the wildlife division and its governing commission, where proposals can get the scientific review they warrant. The state’s wildlife authorities are entrusted with seeing to the best interests of the wildlife we all treasure, and that approach has worked well.

Coloradans would be wise to continue leaving wildlife management to the experts — and to say “no thanks” to the latest version of ballot-box biology.

Colorado Springs Gazette Editorial Board