(The Center Square) – A new report says a ballot measure banning big cat hunting in Colorado would prove costly for state wildlife management and the hunting industry.
Initiative 91, which will appear on the November ballot, would ban the hunting of mountain lions, bobcats, and lynx, removing them from the state’s definition of “big game.”
The report, by the Common Sense Institute, a free-enterprise think tank, estimates that Colorado’s mountain lion population would increase by 443 cats, noting an average of 508 were harvested annually since 2019.
If the measure passes, Colorado Parks and Wildlife would lose between $3.6 million and $5.8 million in revenue “when accounting for lost elk and mule deer permit revenue affected by an increase in mountain lion population,” CSI said.
That loss in revenue would be on top of direct losses of $410,000 in revenue from hunting licenses for CPW by 2025, according to the state’s ballot analysis, and $450,000 each year after that.
“If passed, not only will this measure cost Colorado Parks and Wildlife millions in lost revenue, it will shrink the economic output of the hunting industry and shift costs for property damage and lost livestock to ranchers and landowners,” said CSI Director of Policy & Research DJ Summers, who authored the report.
CSI estimates a $61.65 million hit – or 8% – to the big game hunting industry’s total economic activity. The think tank calculated that number based on $602.4 million in economic output from big game hunting in the state from 2017.
“Any trophy hunting of mountain lions, bobcats, or lynx is inhumane, serves no socially acceptable or ecologically beneficial purpose, and fails to further public safety,” Initiative 91 states.
A bill introduced in the General Assembly to ban mountain lion hunting failed to advance in 2022.