Yet an effort is underway to ban hunting and trapping lions, bobcats and even lynx, which are already protected by the state. Anti-hunting advocates are working to collect enough signatures to get a ban on the ballot this fall.

I urge Colorado residents not to sign this petition because I think voters across the West should resist voting on decisions that are better left to biologists and game managers at state wildlife agencies.

Unlike eastern states, most states in the West allow citizen-initiated ballot measures to make changes to their laws. But using this format of direct democracy, also known as ballot box biology, means citizens take it upon themselves to make policy concerning highly technical topics such as big cat hunting or wolf reintroduction.

The proposed ban is not straightforward.

Including lynx, which cannot be hunted outside of Alaska, is confusing. Another confusing goal of the ban is its goal of preventing hunters from killing cougars and bobcats as trophies, rather than for meat. In Colorado, hunters are already required to take all edible meat from their kills of lions though not for bobcats. States like Montana and Utah exempt big cats from meat-salvage regulations, but how hunters utilize their harvest is better left to experts.

But animal rights activists aren’t trying to make sure hunters eat the mountain lions that they hunt. Their true goal is to prevent hunting in general, starting with a species the public knows little about. If voters think about the ethics of hunting mountain lions, they will realize it’s more complicated than simply banning or allowing the practice.

Consider California, where mountain lion hunting has long been outlawed. In 2023, state wildlife agencies received 515 reports of cougars attacking livestock. In response, the state issued 204 “depredation” permits. Thirty-nine of these permits allowed the cat to be killed, while 165 allowed the non-lethal removal of the animals.

Biology requires that some predators be hunted, regardless of how voters feel about it.

Cougar population management of the state’s approximately 4,000 cougars is such a complex issue that all Colorado hunters must take a course and pass a test before being issued a hunting license to pursue cougars. Last year, 2,599 of these hunters killed 502 mountain lions in the state; if they hadn’t, a much larger number of deer and elk would have undoubtedly been killed by the big cats.

Managing this balance is a full-time job for hundreds of biologists who determine the number of permits to issue based on science rather than a vote.

I’m thankful for these experts, and I don’t want to see them lose hunting as a tool for managing mountain lion populations.

I live in mountain lion country. Walking in the woods behind my house, I often see deer carcasses hanging in trees, evidence of lions storing their next meal. Female cougars screaming during mating season sometimes keeps my family up at night.

Despite these frightening sights and sounds, bees kill far more people than mountain lions. While a recent fatality in California reminds us that cougars are dangerous predators that can kill us, there have been fewer than 30 fatal attacks on humans in the past century.

I support hunting these apex predators to prevent overpopulation. If there are too many mountain lions, they can overhunt prey species and come into more frequent contact with humans. Hunting is a more intelligent, humane approach to wildlife management than allowing populations to grow out of control and die of starvation.

As much as I dislike ballot box biology, the practice is apparently here to stay across the West. But if someone asks you to sign a petition to change hunting laws or your ballot asks you to vote on how to manage specific wildlife populations, ask yourself if you’re an expert on cougars and bobcats.

Let’s not vote to override the sound policies of the state wildlife agency.

Andrew Carpenter is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He is a hunter and writer and lives in Colorado.

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Now, there’s a campaign in Colorado—via a November 2024 ballot initiative—to ban hunting and trapping of bobcats, Canada lynx and mountain lions, though lynx are already listed by the state as endangered and supposedly protected.

As a lifelong hunter and angler, I’m told by a group called the Sportsmen’s Alliance that it’s my duty to defend bobcat trapping and hunting against such “antis” as those pushing the ballot initiative. 

But a true sportsmen’s alliance of ethical hunters—Teddy Roosevelt, George Bird Grinnell, William Hornaday, Congressman John Lacey, and other Boone and Crockett Club members—got most market hunting banned in 1918.

It persists today as commercial trapping and hunting of bobcats. Ethical hunters eat what they kill. Bobcat trappers and hunters discard the meat and sell pelts, mostly for export to China and Russia.

Yet the Sportsmen’s Alliance warns me that, after bobcat trapping gets banned, “hunting … and even fishing are the next traditions in the antis’ crosshairs.”

I don’t buy it. I’ve heard this mantra since the 1970s, including from my then-colleagues at the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife who, like me, were fed and clothed by fishing, trapping and hunting license dollars.

This from veteran bobcat researcher Dr. Mark Elbroch of the native cat conservation group Panthera: “Colorado treats bobcats pretty much like they’re treated throughout the West” (except for California where killing is banned without a special permit.)

“There are hardly any regulations in any state. No bag limits, no data on how many are out there. The hunting community gets super excited about what it calls the ‘North American Model of Conservation,’ and one of the tenets is you don’t kill for profit or trade,” Elbroch continued. “Trapping violates that model in every way. Bobcat trapping is the extreme—selling fur for luxury items. It’s sickening.”

From December through February, Colorado bobcat hunters and trappers may kill as many bobcats as they please. And hunters are permitted to pursue bobcats with hounds, an inhumane practice for both cats and hounds.

Bobcat traps are also unselective, catching other species such as Canada lynx, raptors, otters, foxes, martens, badgers, opossums and skunks. “Lynx, a close relative to bobcats, are naturally attracted to bait set for bobcats and are harmed, injured or killed when caught in traps,” said Colorado veterinarian Christine Capaldo.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife attempts to rebut such reports with: “No lynx in Colorado has ever been reported as accidentally trapped by bobcat fur harvesters.” Of course not. What bobcat trapper would jeopardize permissive regulations by filing such a report?

So, in addition to an estimated 2,000 bobcats, how many non-target animals are killed by the roughly 4,000 bobcat traps annually set in Colorado? No one has a clue.

Colorado requires “humane” live traps. But they’re scarcely more humane than legholds and less humane than quick-kill conibear traps.

During winter, bobcats keep warm by finding shelter. In live traps they’re immobilized and exposed to cold, rain, snow and wind. Traps must be checked every 24 hours, but there’s virtually no enforcement, so live-trapped bobcats sometimes suffer for days. When traps do get checked bobcats get bludgeoned or strangled.

Before European contact, bobcats prospered throughout what are now the contiguous states. Caucasian immigrants quickly set about rectifying this with an all-out war on the species, behavior that flabbergasted the Indigenous and for which their only explanation was that the pale faces were insane. By the early 20^th century, bounties and government control had extirpated bobcats from much of the U.S.

Now bobcats are slowly recovering in every contiguous state save Delaware. That’s an excellent reason not to kill them.

Bobcats belong to all Americans, the vast majority of whom prefer them alive. But they’re managed for the very few people who kill them for profit. And from a strictly financial perspective, live bobcats are more valuable than dead ones.

A study published in 2017 in the journal Biodiversity and Conservation, based on money spent by wildlife photographers, set the value of a single live bobcat at $308,000. Today the average bobcat pelt fetches $100.

Ted Williams is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring conversation about the West. He writes about fish and wildlife for national publications.

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