Miles into the backcountry and you finally come across a track. It’s not the buck you’re looking for but, as a hunter, this track is just as important. It’s a paw with three distinguished lobes on the back of the heel pad. You know it’s a mountain lion, and you soon realize that up ahead the ground is covered in deer fur. That buck you were after was being hunted by something other than you.
In the pursuit of mule deer, it is just a matter of time before you come across the unavoidable predator kill. Mule deer and their predators are inevitably connected, and establishing healthy populations of mule deer can’t be done without taking their predators into account. While hunters have rules and regulations to make sure we are utilizing our natural resources in a sustainable manner, nature does not play by the same rules. Predators must be managed like any other wildlife species; they are not an exception.
On average, predator populations are stable or increasing throughout most of the United States – not decreasing to the point of extinction, as some animal right groups often claim. Wildlife professionals assess a multitude of factors in managing all wildlife populations including habitat availability and connectivity, food abundance and diversity, disease, environmental conditions, depredation, reproductive success, human conflict, social tolerance, public safety, and more. There is no question that predator and prey populations are intrinsically linked, but the specifics of these relationships are extremely variable depending on the species involved, location, habitat, environmental conditions, and more. State fish and wildlife agencies use the most accurate and current data to make science-based decisions on season length, quotas, and harvest limits among others to ensure that harvest rates allow for a proper management, mitigation of human-wildlife conflict, and sustainability of the species in perpetuity. Wildlife management is a complex topic and one that should be left to state agencies who have the most current and accurate scientific data to be able to assess all contributing factors to ensure healthy and sustainable populations of both predators and prey. Yet, every year we see efforts made to undermine state fish and wildlife agencies by attempting to end or limit predator hunting.
To many of us that experience life out in the wild, the need for predator hunting seems like a no-brainer. Yet, in recent years, few topics in the conservation realm have proven to be more controversial than that of predator hunting. From east to west, predator hunting has continually been subjected to extensive scrutiny by the anti-hunting community and the misinformed public. Unfortunately, this useful wildlife management tool has continued to be misrepresented by “animal rights” organizations who fuel their rhetoric with emotion, rather than fact. Predator species are charismatic, iconic, and often anthropomorphized, making them the “low hanging fruit” for the antihunting agenda. They are the easiest starting point, not the end goal. Antihunters will often misrepresent predator hunting, claiming that these predators are nearly extinct or hunted for no reason. Using emotion and often times misinformation to persuade the general nonhunting public to join their cause, animal rights groups have attacked predator hunting from all sides – from misguided legislation and regulations resulting from public petitioning to state-wide ballot initiatives. With continued attempts to take away this tool of wildlife management from many state fish and wildlife agencies, sportsmen and women should be well aware of the attempts to hinder their state’s fish and wildlife agency’s authority. Whether you are a predator hunter yourself or not, if you care about mule deer and conservation, these attempts to end predator hunting that completely go against the highly successful, world-renowned North American Model of Wildlife Conservation affect you.
With antihunters focusing in on a specific species, many attempts have specifically targeted either bear or feline hunting, despite the greater goal of the antihunting agenda being to end predator hunting and all hunting in its entirety. By focusing on one species, the antihunting community can avoid alarming the greater sporting-conservation community, as it is easy to be complacent about things that don’t seem to directly affect us. We cannot be complacent, and we cannot hesitate to become involved, as the antihunting community continues to chisel away at our time-honored traditions. From east to west, attempts to limit or end predator hunting continue throughout the states, and the sporting-conservation community must be vigilant and active to fight off these attempts. With the leadership of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF), the sporting-conservation community has been able to thwart many of these attempts. Through CSF’s advocacy, attempts to end bear hunting in Colorado in 2022 and end mountain lion hunting in Nebraska in 2014 have been blocked, among countless others.
The Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation was on the ground fighting against the 2024 attack on predator hunting by anti-hunting interests as they came after feline management in Colorado, a state that some consider to be the crown jewel of mule deer. In fall of 2023, antihunting groups in Colorado filed ballot Initiatives 91 and 101, both of which were seeking to prohibit big cat hunting. However, both initiatives were really just egregious examples of ballot box biology that would ban what they deem to be trophy hunting, constituting a serious attack on our traditions and values that would negatively impact Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s revenue and science-based conservation programs. Reduced management of Colorado’s mountain lion, lynx, and bobcat populations would have negative downstream effects on other wildlife populations. The use of ballot initiatives to ban hunting and dictate wildlife management practices circumvents the regulatory process that provides the opportunity for input by professionals, for revisions, and considerations of broader impacts within the state’s overall science-based management plan. These initiatives can allow wildlife management decisions to be made based on emotion rather than scientific principles, tying the hands of professional wildlife managers by restricting adaptive tools and methods necessary to achieve balanced and thriving ecosystems. Both Initiative 91 and 101 were filed shortly after the Colorado Legislature soundly defeated similar proposals during the 2023 legislative session. After their legislative proposal, Senate Bill 22-031, went down in flames with a 4-1 vote in the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, animal rights organizations are now attempting to circumvent the legislative process and instead pass their hunting ban by placing it on the November 2024 ballot. The Colorado Legislative Sportsmen’s Caucus and the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, along with partners from the Colorado Wildlife Conservation Partnership (CWCP), were able to beat back these efforts during the 2023 legislative session and continued working with national and in-state partners to oppose these initiatives in 2024. The ballot initiative ultimately failed, due to a massive information campaign by the sporting-conservation community, which shared the truth behind hunting and science-based wildlife management.
Unfortunately, Colorado isn’t alone in facing attacks by animal rights activists attempting to erode the North American Model of Conservation. Efforts are also underway in Oregon, where the antihunting community has jumped straight from a species-specific focus to Initiative Petition 28, which would end all hunting, fishing, and trapping in the state. IP28 would restrict critical wildlife management tools and have a disastrous impact on conservation funding, as roughly half of Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s budget comes from sportsmen-generated dollars. Reducing this funding by removing all hunting and fishing license sales threatens vital conservation efforts that protect the state’s wildlife and the habitat upon which they rely. Despite significant scientific evidence that hunting is an essential tool in sustainably managing social and ecological carrying capacity of predators, the antis continue to charge ahead in an attempt to chip away at our time-honored traditions. That’s where CSF comes in. CSF, with support from partner organizations, has been on the ground organizing the sportsmen’s community response to this initiative, along with fighting back against other efforts to move away science-based management.
When our time-honored traditions are threatened, the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation gets to work. Our dedicated team of hunters, anglers, recreational shooters, and policy professionals work at both the federal and state level to help give America’s 55 million sportsmen and women a voice in the halls of government. From coast to coast, we have been fighting against the spread of misinformation and misrepresentation of predator hunting to help ensure that management authority remains with the experts best equipped to make those decisions: state fish and wildlife agencies. You can count on us to keep advocating for you on the issues that mean the most because what matters to you matters to us.