Colorado's fur ban debate sparks 'culture war' over wildlife – The Coloradoan

Colorado’s contentious wolf reintroduction program isn’t the only wildlife issue gnawing at Colorado Parks and Wildlife staff and creating a culture war over wildlife management.
How the state should manage furbearers, which includes coyotes, foxes, bobcats, beavers and pine martin, is the next fight between many of the same players battling over wolf management.
Like the wolf debate, the furbearer battle has drawn large interest with loud voices from in and out-of-state interests.
More than 400 people packed the heavily secured DoubleTree Hotel in Westminster on March 4 for a chaotic Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission meeting that ended in the commission voting 6-4 to allow a petition to ban commercial fur sales to continue via rulemaking process.
That sparked outrage from hunting, outfitting and agriculture groups that heavily criticized the commission’s meeting proceedings and for voting against a CPW recommendation to deny the petition based on its studies that hunting and trapping of furbearers is well below what those populations can sustain and still remain healthy.
Now Colorado Parks and Wildlife is bracing for a large number of responses to pour in during a comment period that will help the agency create an issue paper outlining the regulatory considerations and potential changes to current regulations related to the ban.
That comment period ends May 3, with both sides of the issue reaching out via social media to encourage their supporters to submit comments.
CPW also is warning that due to anticipated high volume of attendees at the May 6-7 commission meeting in Grand Junction that not all public commenters will get a chance to speak. It is expected the furbearer topic will be discussed at the meeting but that meeting’s agenda has not yet been published.
CPW plans to present its full findings to the commission at a meeting July 16–17 in Ignacio with a final decision by the 11-member commission slated for its September meeting.
Dan Gates, who founded the hunting and wildlife conservation advocacy group Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management, said it is clear the opposition has one goal.
“They say this is not a hunting or trapping ban but their ultimate goal is to stop hunting and trapping,” Gates told the Coloradoan. “They couldn’t get these things through one way so they go another way. This is a culture war. All you have to do to see that is their actions speak louder than words.”
Gates pointed out the opposition’s attempts to ban mountain lion hunting and fur sales in Denver, both of which were both defeated by voters in recent years, a bill aimed to ban recreational and commercial beaver trapping on public lands that failed this year and the current fur ban petition as evidence of the opposition’s end game.
Samantha Miller, the Center for Biological Diversity’s senior carnivore campaigner and fur ban petition initiator, countered the furbearer ban is not an attempt to ban all hunting and trapping. She also spearheaded Proposition 127, the failed attempt to ban mountain lion hunting.
“The petition would lead to the banning of commercial fur sales but for a small percentage of the population that does this recreationally,” Miller said. “This isn’t a ban of all hunting and trapping.”
Opponents of the fur ban have trumpeted claims of political influence by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis and First Gentleman Marlon Reis, an animal rights activist.
Most notably, Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management, the group leading opposition of the fur ban petition, and other similar hunting organizations, posted on its Instagram a video of Miller, claiming it as proof wildlife decisions are being influenced by the governor and first gentleman.
“What we have been directed from the governor’s office is ‘don’t let us be shown up in Denver,'” Miller says in the video clip. “The next meeting will be in Grand Junction, but you guys are in Denver. ‘Don’t let them show you up in Denver.’ Everyone needs to show up.”
Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management posted the video, shot before the March 4 commission meeting, on its social media sites after the commission meeting.
Miller told the Coloradoan the video was secretly recorded at a private meeting of animal advocates preparing for the March 4 commission meeting and that the clip used by Gates took what she said out of context.
“The governor never told me that directly and it’s not like the governor was ordering you to show up to the meeting,” Miller said. “It’s accurate that the governor’s office wants the public to participate in wildlife management that they care about.
“I think it’s really important to have conversations with the governor’s office, but I don’t have that kind of relationship with the governor. Yes, I have had conversations with the first gentleman because he is an animal welfare advocate but his views are different than the governor’s.”
Gates disagrees.
“Nothing was taken out of context and she used the governor as a bargaining chip to rally the troops and influence public sentiment,” Gates said. “Yeah, I think she talks to the governor and first gentleman. If she talks to the first gentleman, she’s talking to the governor.”
Gates noted, as a Type 1 agency, CPW is designed by statute to make science-based wildlife management decisions without political influence.
The governor’s office has repeatedly said it doesn’t take positions on petitions or wildlife management decisions and has not influenced outcomes.
Hunting, outfitter and agriculture organizations have repeatedly expressed concerns over what they see as Polis filling the parks and wildlife commission with appointees friendly to the first gentleman’s animal activism and against hunting, trapping and agriculture.
The 11-member volunteer citizen board sets regulations and policies administered by Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Members consist of three each representing sportspersons (hunting, fishing, outfitting), outdoor recreation and parks and agriculture with two at-large seats from across the state.
Members are appointed by the governor and voted on by the seven-member Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee for a favorable or unfavorable recommendation forwarded to the full Senate for a final vote.
The Colorado Wildlife Conservation Project, representing 15 hunting, fishing and trapping organizations and a handful of former CPW staff and commissioners, sent a letter dated April 16 to Colorado senators expressing their concerns that since Polis took office in 2019 he has pushed commissioner appointees with “extreme animal rights and anti-hunting agendas.”
They believe that pace has quickened with Polis’ second and final term ending in January.
“There is a desperation level of them trying to do all these things to hang their hat on before the governor is out,” Gates said. “Instead, what they should be doing is selecting representation from people with a mindset that is reasonable, thoughtful, bi-partisan and in the best interest of all wildlife resources. That’s not what’s happening now.”
Delia Malone, president of ColoradoWild, a strong supporter of the furbearer ban and reintroduction of wolves, said it’s true under Polis there has been a trend to fill the commission with people who reflect a wider diversity of Coloradans’ interests in the outdoors. And she applauded Polis for the change.
“I see why the opposition is afraid,” Malone told the Coloradoan. “For a long time it was dominated by a small number of commissioners with narrow interests. Now we are seeing commissioners that represent more than just ranching, hunting and fishing.”
Controversy over Polis’ appointments has surfaced in recent years with the Senate committee voting for unfavorable recommendations on five of Polis’ last 11 commission appointees.
“This never used to happen; they were just rubberstamped,” Malone said on April 23. “Appointees would go along with the status quo and there was no controversy. For those that want to remain static and not be reflective of what we know is happening with our wildlife in Colorado, they will fight it tooth and nail.”
Three of those five resigned before their vote came before the full Democrat-controlled Senate, including two April 24. The other two were confirmed by the Senate.
The two latest Polis appointees to resign before a full Senate vote were at-large appointee John Emerick, of Redstone, and sportspersons appointee Christopher Sichko, of Boulder. The committee and full Senate unanimously voted Colorado Springs outfitter Francis Silva Blaney to fill one of the sportspersons/outfitters spots on the commission.
Emerick and Silva Blaney were appointed in July and Sichko in February.
It’s unsure how the resignations of Emerick and Sichko, both opposed by hunting and outfitter groups, will change the commission makeup and vote on the furbearer ban. In addition to those two spots now empty, two commissioners — Richard Reading, at-large, and Gabe Otero, sportsperson representative — are up for reappointment in July. Eden Vardy, agriculture representative, is term limited.
Reading and Vardy voted in favor of banning commercial fur sales and Otero voted against the ban.
“The new makeup of the commission creates a lot of unknowns from multiple perspectives, Gates said.
Gates and others point out commissioners Jessica Beaulieu’s and Jay Tutchton’s past ties with the Center for Biological Diversity, who both voted in favor of the fur ban petition, also previously received unfavorable recommendations from the Senate committee.
Emerick, who is Malone’s longtime partner, was the lightning rod at the April 22 hearing.
Members of the Senate committee questioned his ability as an at-large member to fairly represent the entire state given his past animal rights activism and voting record against hunting and agriculture.
That included supporting wolf reintroduction, a failed bill to ban mountain lion hunting and petitions to restrict wolf compensation to ranchers for livestock losses and fur ban.
In his opening statements, Emerick addressed his past as treasure of ColoradoWild, led by Malone, but that he relinquished the role when appointed to the commission.
“I’m worried about the future of the reputation of the CPW commission if folks who continue to have a vey specific point of view are being appointed by this governor in what I think is a clear attempt to move the commission in a direction that is not within the mainstream of Colorado,” Democrat Dylan Roberts, committee chair and whose district covers Western Slope counties, said before voting no on Emerick.
Emerick questioned being called an activist by senators and said he is proud of his work on the commission. He said he came to the commission as a scientist and that the commission deserves members who follow the science, engage honestly with constituents and exercise independent judgement.
“What I’m most proud of is what this process revealed about how public servants are treated when powerful interests decide the outcome before the hearing begins,” Emerick told the Coloradoan on April 25. “Colorado deserves better than that.”
Senators grilled Sichko based on his lack of hunting big game (elk, deer and moose), a hunting segment that largely funds CPW, and that he was appointed by Polis with no big game hunting experience while 12 of the 18 applicants for the commission spot had that experience.
The Colorado Wildlife Conservation Project’s letter to senators said it opposed Sichko and Emerick as appointees.
Another concern raised by some senators was a statement Sichko made in a story regarding his support of rewilding. Sichko did not vote on the fur ban petition, as he was only a month into being appointed.
Rewilding is a wildlife conservation approach based on the restoration of a balanced self-sustaining ecosystem, including the reintroduction of declining species, but otherwise with reduced human management.
It conflicts with the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation that employs hunting, trapping and fishing as a conservation and management tool. The NAM aligns closely with CPW’s current wildlife management philosophy.
“My ultimate goal is to support the regeneration and rewilding of the American Great Plains, building a region that supports robust, healthy, and vibrant human and animal coexistence,” Sichko was quoted in a 2024 story in Elevated Outdoors.
When questioned about his statement, Sichko, who is a small game hunter, angler and former U.S. Department of Agriculture’s economist, said he had been waiting to address the topic since being appointed as a commissioner in February.
“Rewilding was not the right word,” Sichko told the senators. “I think I picked that up from a book my mom was reading rewilding the garden. I didn’t understand the larger connotation of it and I’m sorry for the misuse of that. I understand now that it is associated with driving people off their land and that is most certainly not what I intend to do.”
This story has been updated with additional details.

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