Changes to the hunting and trapping of furbearing animals on Colorado’s public lands is the subject of an upcoming CPW Commission meeting. Officials are expecting a high volume of attendees to turn out for this controversial issue. Here’s KDNK’s Lily Jones speaking with Delia Malone of Colorado Wild.
KDNK: Hi Delia, welcome back.
Delia Malone: Hello, Lily. Good to be back.
KDNK: So I want to talk about this upcoming CPW commission meeting. The big topic on our agenda here is the hunting and trapping of the animals that they refer to as furbearing. So your beavers, bobcats, [and] animals with a desirable pelt on public lands. What can you tell us about that?
DM: Well, first of all, there will be two rulemakings. They divided the furbearers into two groups. One large group of 16 of them, those are the mesocarnivores, and then one rodent, which is beavers. So that's two separate rule makings. And what this is limited to is what they call the vocational harvest. In other words, recreational trapping and hunting of those furbearers on public land.
So currently, during the season, the season varies by species, so we're talking about species like red foxes, swift foxes, and long and short-tailed weasels, and mink and pine martin and species like that. So, depending on the species, the season varies. But typically, [it's] three to four to five or six months, and currently the take is unlimited.
The problem, in my opinion, with that, of course, is that they have, as in CPW staff, they have no data whatsoever on the abundance or the distribution of any of those forebears. And so to make any kind of scientific determination on how many should or should not be killed is next to impossible.
KDNK: The most recent harvest and management report on CPW’s website is for the 2016-2017 season, now almost a decade old. That report acknowledges, “...the survey results are plagued by extremely wide confidence limits to the point of rendering them useless for making management decisions.”
Last year's harvest report was informed by a survey of hunters, which the agency used to calculate approximate harvest numbers for eight furbearing species.
The only furbearer with an annual mortality table is the bobcat. CPW states bobcat populations are stable and may be rising in some places.
No management report was available for the 2024-2025 season.
DM: I was involved in the furbearer working group, which met once a month for about six months, and we were supposed to come up with new policy recommendations with regard to furbearers, and we did. But the recommendations that were presented to CPW staff were written by the facilitator, and she took our position, our group, [which] was the group that did not want to see furbearers trapped or hunted. And there was another group, the trapping and hunting proponents. And so she met with both of us groups, and then she came up with her own recommendations.
And I don't know if staff is going to accept those recommendations or if they're going to say something else. It's the public's opportunity because this is a rule-making, and so in rule makings, Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission, by regulation, they have to take public comment. So it's an opportunity for the public to comment on what the policy recommendations are from the facilitator.
KDNK: Can you clarify what facilitator means in this context?
DM: She was a woman that has a company and her job...She was hired by CPW to organize meetings of proponents of furbearer hunting and trapping and opponents of furbearer hunting and trapping, and so she ran those meetings. She organized, and she asked the questions, and she took the comments, and then she put all those comments together and made her own recommendations based on those comments.
Our [Colorado Wild's] stance is that there should be a moratorium on hunting and trapping of fur bearers until there's solid scientific data with regard to the distribution and abundance of those furbearers. Because what we also know in the context of a severely warming climate and in the context of crashing biological diversity, including in Colorado, as is evidenced by the State Wildlife Action Plan. We need to know for certain what we are doing and if the furbearer population can withstand hunting and trapping.
KDNK: What do the proponents of furbearer hunting have to say?
DM: Well, in our last two workshops, the groups were in the same room. The first four workshops, we were separated, and in the last two workshops, we had the opportunity to exchange opinions. And one of the opinions expressed continually by the proponents of hunting and trapping of furbears was that there is nothing wrong. Everything is fine. Nothing has changed. So why do we need to change this now? Another opinion is that they have a right to hunt and trap furbearers. Uh, and I think it's important to clarify that this is the vocational harvest. In other words, recreational hunting on public land. Most of those furbearers on private land are also classified as nuisance species. So on private land if you have a raccoon that is bothering your chickens, you can kill it. You don't need a permit. So this is just recreational killing on public land that we're speaking about.
The Commission is considering a citizen petition requesting mandatory checks for bobcats, swift fox and beaver, and another prohibiting the sale of furbearer furs, with some exemptions. The meeting will be held on March 4 and 5 in Denver, and livestreamed on CPW’s YouTube Channel.
