For millions of years Puma concolor has roamed the landscape of the place we now call Colorado. And throughout the state’s history, how to live with cougars has been a repeating question for legislators, wildlife managers, and the public.
The issue is again prominent. Centennial state voters will decide in November whether to forbid trophy hunting of the big cats.
And the stakes are large.
Cougar deaths have dramatically jumped in recent years. Data gathered by the Mountain Lion Foundation shows that Colorado has the fourth-highest rate of human-caused mortality among the solitary panthers.
Hunting accounts for nearly all of them, with 92% of deaths traceable to that activity.
“The number of mountain lions killed for sport hunting has increased steadily over the years, averaging around 300-400 mountain lions per year in the early 2000s up to 443 per year from 2010-2015 to 499 per year from 2016-2021,” according to the organization’s website.
The number of mountain lions being killed every year exceeds even the annual toll exacted during the state’s bounty era. During that period, which lasted from the 19th century to 1965, a total of 1,750 financial rewards for killing catamounts were paid out.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife does not appear concerned. Agency statistics indicate that more than 500 pumas, out of a population of about 4,000, were killed by hunters during 2022-2023. That was up from 486 the previous year and about the same number that were taken in 2020-2021.
“For many people, hunting is a continuation of the hunter-gatherer traditions and a way to connect to nature,” opines CPW’s website. “It also helps maintain healthy wild animal populations.”
The latter point is not universally accepted among biologists and wildlife advocates. And even some hunters disagree with it.
“Hunting predators is unnecessary,” said Dave Ruane, a biologist, bowhunter and activist affiliated with Cats Aren’t Trophies, the principal proponent of this autumn’s potential ballot measure.
“Several studies dating back to 1971 looked into whether increasing trophy hunts of mountain lions could increase deer populations,” CAT’s campaign manager said in a text message. She referred to studies published in 2022 and 2011.
Protection of livestock, too, may not be advanced by allowing cougar killing.
“Several areas with increasing numbers of complaints and depredations corresponded with declining female cougar populations and increasing male populations,” concluded one 2013 study. “These results suggest that remedial sport hunting might not reduce cougar (and other carnivore) populations and associated complaints and livestock depredations.”
Another paper published in 2011 also showed a correlation between increased cougar hunting and livestock depredation and suggested that hunting disrupts social structures, leading young males to roam wider territories and target easier prey like livestock.
That situation may be occurring in Colorado, where more than 40% of pumas hunted every year are female, which leaves their kittens abandoned.
“You have younger lions that don’t have their moms,” said Samantha Miller, CAT’s campaign manager. “We’ve got lions that are looking for food and are more likely to go after livestock.”
In any case, federal government data casts doubt on whether mountain lion populations impact livestock to any great extent.
As for the question whether hunting is needed to limit human-cougar conflict, even CPW agrees the answer is murky.
“The science on this is undecided,” announced the agency in a recent publication. “A few correlative studies claim to show a counter-intuitive increase in human-lion conflicts under high harvest scenarios.”
Nor, Ruane argues, is cougar hunting fair, given that those seeking to kill cougars often employ packs of dogs in the process.
“More than 90% of the land hunted in Colorado is where they set a pack of dogs loose on a track,” he said. “They set eight of them loose at a time and it’s an absolute circus when they tree a lion. As an ethical hunter I find that outrageous.”
Ruane pointed out that, in some cases, those chasing catamounts do very little work in the process.
“You’re essentially shooting a fish in a barrel,” he said. “You tree a cat and then shoot it out of the tree. These dogs have radio collars. They park their truck as close as they can to where the cat is treed. Some guys take a bow with them and call it a bow hunt. It’s not a bow hunt, it’s a bow shoot.”
Miller also noted that few hunters are likely to eat the flesh of mountain lions.
“No one hunts lions for their freezer,” she said. “The primary purpose is for the trophy.”
Hunters, unsurprisingly, disagree that hunting of cougars is a problem and argue that the public should not be involved in stewardship of wildlife.
“Decisions about how best to manage our rich wildlife resources should be left to the experts at Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission — not fringe animal rights activists,” said Bryan Jones, Colorado and Wyoming Coordinator for Backcountry Hunters and Anglers.
If voters agree to ban trophy hunting of pumas, Colorado would join California in enacting such a law. The Golden State has banned the practice since 1972.
Initiative 91 would also prohibit trophy hunting of bobcats, a more common predator on the Colorado landscape than the catamount.
Felis rufus ranges across the state. Individual adults are about three feet long and have a short tail.
While they are not as scarce as mountain lions, bobcat populations do face pressure. For that reason they are protected by Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
Nevertheless, trappers set about 4,000 snares every year and annually kill about 2,000 of the cats. Both in Colorado and nationwide, the main motivation for hunting is to profit from the animal’s pelt.
At least 65,000 bobcat furs are exported out of the United States each year, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service data, with China being one of the principal markets.
“That goes against the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation,” Ruane said, explaining that the longstanding framework for wildlife management bars profiteering from wild animals. “The model says you’re supposed to use these pelts for your own consumption, not for sale on the market.”
And the methods used to kill bobcats are brutal, Ruane continued.
“The far majority of those (bobcats) are trapped,” he said. “Colorado doesn’t allow footholds, but they do allow live traps. These guys are catching these creatures alive and killing them by standing on their chest or bludgeoning them.”
Nor are there any limits on bobcat trapping.
“It’s something less than $50 and you can trap as many bobcats as you can in that four month period,” Ruane said. “There’s a limit on varmints but there’s no limit on a native wildlife species.”
Advocates of the ballot measure are also concerned that bobcat hunting imperils the lynx, another wild feline reintroduced to Colorado in 2011 and listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Taking of that species is illegal and can even be prosecuted as a federal crime.
“It really is the honor system when it comes to trappers,” Raune said. “It’s a federal crime, so they’re not going to turn themselves in. It’s a no brainer not to report themselves. Do I think lynx are being trapped? Absolutely. Do I think they’re being reported? Absolutely not.”
Colorado would not be the first state to ban bobcat hunting and trapping. California did so as of January 1, 2020.
Lynx, too, would be protected from hunting and trapping under Initiative 91.
The proposal preserves CPW’s authority to protect humans when there is a risk of harm from the predatory cats.
“It still empowers CPW to manage lions and bobcats that are involved in conflict,” Miller explained.
On July 3 CAT submitted more than 180,000 signatures in support of its quest to place Initiative 91 on the 2024 general election ballot. The office of secretary of state Jena Griswold announced July 31 that the organization met the minimum threshold of 124,328, which represents 5% of the number of voters in the November 2020 election.
“After reviewing a five-percent random sample of the submitted signatures, the Elections Division projected the number of valid signatures to be greater than 110 percent of the total number of signatures required for placement on the ballot,” Griswold’s office said.
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