Prairie Protection Colorado

10/13/2026

Hell No on 83: Get that ugly man out of Colorado's wildlife policies!

Vote NO on 83. Stop the out-of-state power grab.

✅Out-of-state groups want their preferred wildlife policy locked into Colorado’s Constitution. The Wisconsin-based International Order of T. Roosevelt is a major backer. Colorado shouldn’t hand these groups a new constitutional tool to challenge our wildlife rules.

✅Hunting and fishing are already legal. A NO vote keeps them legal under existing law.

✅83 changes Colorado’s Constitution. Fixing its language later requires another statewide vote. We will be living with these words long after the campaign ads disappear.

✅ “Traditional methods” is undefined. The amendment protects methods without telling voters exactly which ones it means. Courts get to interpret that language later.

✅ “Preferred means” gives hunting and fishing constitutional preference. Wildlife managers should choose the tools that fit the problem. We shouldn’t put one approach ahead of others in the Constitution.

✅“If the law is necessary” puts a condition on regulation. Our objection is straightforward: it gives groups another constitutional argument against wildlife protections, including laws voters approve.

✅Colorado gets the legal bills. Additional costs could arise from legal advice and litigation if regulations are challenged under the new right. That’s public money spent defending wildlife rules.

✅Safari Club International, a trophy hunting group headquartered in Washington, D.C., is already suing the CPW Commission over furbearer limits. They didn’t even wait for 83 to pass or fail. (safariclub.org, safariclub.org)

For more information and sources, visit our page, Protect Colorado’s Constitution.

Paid for by Protect Colorado’s Constitution.

Sources:

* Final Amendment 83 text
* Colorado’s 2026 Blue Book, pages 21–23
* Colorado Newsline: campaign backing and funding
* Safari Club International’s October 2 lawsuit announcement

10/13/2026

Excellent article by Ted Williams :

On Nov. 3, Coloradans will vote on Amendment 83. It would amend the state constitution to make hunting and fishing a legal “right,” ensuring “traditional methods.”

Amendment 83 would be a disaster for wildlife and wildlife advocates, including ethical hunters.

As a lifelong hunter, I have always recognized and promoted hunting as a privilege to be defended by science and ethics. This was my main message to sportsmen when I served as an information officer for the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife.

People who imagine that hunting is their right tend to wear that fiction on their sleeves, thrusting it into the faces of the 95% of Americans who don’t hunt, many of whom disapprove of hunting. Such hunters generate the anti-hunting sentiment they complain about.

The Boone and Crockett Club posted this statement from my friend Jack Ward Thomas (1934-2016), chief of the U.S. Forest Service and the club’s endowed professor of wildlife conservation at the University of Montana: “Hunting is a privilege to be repeatedly earned, year after year, by those who hunt. It is well for hunters to remember that in a democracy, privileges, which include hunting, are maintained through the approval of the public at large. Hunting must be conducted under both laws and ethical guidelines in order to ensure this approval.”

There are many “traditional hunting methods” that ethical hunters disapprove of. One would be wildlife killing contests in which such Colorado wildlife as bobcats, coyotes, foxes, badgers, raccoons, skunks and prairie dogs were blown apart with tripod-stabilized high-powered ri**es by contestants reclining in chairs and wearing night-vision gear. Victims were usually left to rot on the ground, poisoning scavengers with lead-bullet fragments. The Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission outlawed wildlife killing contests in 2020. Amendment 83 could reinstate them.

“Traditional methods” of hunting included baiting bears with garbage so they could be shot at point-blank range and using hounds to rip bears apart. Colorado voters banned both in 1992. Amendment 83 could reinstate them.

In 1996, Colorado voters banned leghold traps. Amendment 83 could bring them back.

Whooping it up for Amendment 83 and recycling the ancient superstition that predators must be shot to generate game are Tom Opre’s Shepherd’s Brief, a video series that rails against all “ballot box biology” save Amendment 83, which it promotes; Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management; and the International Order of T. Roosevelt, which warns that unless shot by hunters, “predatory wolves would drastically hinder the natural growth of the wildlife prey populations,” and that “Theodore Roosevelt’s own writings emphasized that ‘sportsmen’ are the most important factor in preventing the extinction of large game.”

On that subject, what Roosevelt’s writings emphasized was his fantasy that “bad” animals should be eliminated to benefit “good” ones. For example, he asserted that cougars are “both craven and cruel,” that the wolf is a “beast of waste and desolation” and that both should be shot for alleged benefit of game.

Proponents of Amendment 83 assure voters that it won’t affect bans on trapping or inhumane, unethical hunting methods. But a coalition of hunters and other wildlife advocates who oppose Amendment 83, Colorado Hunters and Anglers for Sensible Wildlife Conservation, offers this: “The proposed amendment explicitly protects ‘traditional methods’ of hunting, while being careful not to define what ‘traditional methods’ means. That intentionally vague language is crafted to overturn the will of Colorado voters.”

And from Animal Wellness Action: “The NRA and a billionaire trophy hunter have teamed up to repeal bans by the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission and voters on inhumane, unsporting practices. The state and its citizens need to protect their authority.”

“Traditional methods” of ethical hunting in Colorado are threatened only in the minds of Amendment 83 proponents who perceive anti-hunters lurking behind every glacial erratic. The proposal is a solution looking for a problem.

Ted Williams writes about fish and wildlife and serves on the Circle of Chiefs of the Outdoor Writers Association of America. He is a former columnist for Audubon Magazine, The Nature Conservancy and Fly Rod & Reel. He lives in Grafton, Massachusetts.

https://www.durangoherald.com/articles/columnists/amendment-83-could-bring-back-bear-baiting-leghold-traps-and-killing-contests/

10/13/2026

"If Amendment 83 was truly about protecting hunters and anglers, that is all it would say. Instead, it is a poorly drafted, sweeping amendment that would place an unscientific restriction on how Colorado manages its diverse wildlife for generations to come.

Start with what the amendment actually says. As written, it never defines “traditional methods.” As a general principle, establishing constitutional rights that are not clearly defined is bad public policy. Read plainly, “traditional methods” could be interpreted to include practices like poisoning, leg-holding traps, gill nets or baiting and hounding — methods that have been contested because of their impacts on non-target animals, pets and public safety.

Colorado, through the legislature and Colorado Parks and Wildlife regulations, has narrowed some of these practices in response to public concern and updated science. Amendment 83 would make future adjustments to these and other unknown traditional methods of harvesting wildlife enormously difficult, if not impossible, by establishing a constitutional right to use them. If you don’t want our streams and lakes to be fished with spearfishing and gill nets, or you don’t want your dog picking up poisoned bait when you are out on a hike, then vote against Amendment 83."

The poorly drafted amendment would place unscientific restrictions on Colorado’s wildlife management, tying the hands of experts.

10/12/2026

Dan Gates wants your vote. Tell Dan NO! No on 83!!

Costume Pretender Wants To Dictate Colorado's Wildlife Management Policy.

Dan Gates, a fur trapper and prominent advocate for Amendment 83, wants to enshrine hunting and trapping rights in Colorado’s Constitution. But his own words raise serious questions about what this amendment is really designed to accomplish.

Read his statements. Then ask yourself: Who should have the final say over Colorado’s wildlife? The public and professional wildlife scientists, or special interests seeking constitutional protection for their own preferred practices?

Dan Gates, in his own words:

🚨 “You want to turn around and restrict it [hunting and trapping]? We have the state constitution that denies you the opportunity to do that.”

— Gates, discussing the constitutional strategy to prevent future regulations on hunting and trapping. Even in times of drought and wildfire habitat loss? No thanks, Dan.
Source: Through the Gates, Episode 100, May 26, 2026.

🚨 “It's a device that can create obstacles in people's attempts to try to take away hunting and fishing and traditional wildlife management opportunities.”

— Gates describing the constitutional amendment as a way to create legal obstacles to future efforts to regulate. Nobody is "taking away" hunting in Colorado, Dan. Nice fear mongering. But he exposes himself by using the word "traditional" and still, like the amendment, does not define it.

🚨 “Now we have legal standing and can go to court.”

— Gates, describing what constitutional protection would mean for proponents of hunting and trapping rights.

🚨 “And I don't want the donut guy saying how to manage wildlife. I don't want the UPS guy managing wildlife. I don't want uneducated people just being able to check the box. Yes or no. Should we or should we not harvest this or allow for that?”

Source: Hunt Talk Radio, Episode 102.

Gates uses the donut-shop owner and UPS worker as examples of people he believes lack the knowledge to make wildlife decisions.

But does simply enjoying hunting make hunters and trappers qualified to make those decisions? As a whole, they are not wildlife biologists. They aren't scientists. but their amendment 83 elevates them to management status with "hunting is the preferred means of wildlife management". That's something different than saying "hunting shall be legally protected for all time". That's a management power grab.

🚨 “I don't think wildlife issues should be voted on, period. I think we've got plenty of experts to be able to do that.”

— Gates, arguing that wildlife decisions should be left to experts. Yet his proposed constitutional amendment would give special constitutional protection to hunting and trapping interests and constrain the authority of professional wildlife managers to "IF necessary". Again, management power grab.

Source: Sportsman of Colorado, “Amendment 83,” September 15, 2026.

🚨 “The general public is that middle of the road group…”

— Gates goes on to argue that the public does not want to be told what to do. But should the public’s ability to shape wildlife policy be constitutionally constrained when voters disagree with HIS preferred methods?

Source: Through the Gates, Episode 99.

🚨 And then there is Luke Hilgemann, of IOTR of Wisconsin, that paid $2 million to push the campaign for 83, who has openly described the legal consequences proponents hope to create.

Luke Hilgemann, on the strategy behind Amendment 83:

“We’re creating case law.”

That raises an important question: Is Amendment 83 simply about protecting a right or is it also intended to create a constitutional foundation for lawsuits that could reshape how Colorado manages wildlife?

✅ If proponents themselves acknowledge that the amendment can create legal standing, obstacles to future regulations, and new case law, Coloradans deserve to understand what they are being asked to put into their Constitution.

THE QUESTION COLORADANS SHOULD BE ASKING

Colorado’s wildlife belongs to all of us—not just hunters, trappers, or the special interests who lobby on their behalf.

Why should one group’s preferred methods receive constitutional protection and be elevated to management status when wildlife belongs to everyone?

Our wildlife professionals need the flexibility to respond to changing science, drought, disease, wildfires, wildlife populations, habitat conditions, and public concerns.

✅ Our Constitution should protect the public’s voice—not make it harder to exercise.

Don’t let a frontier fantasy dictate Colorado’s wildlife future.

VOTE NO ON AMENDMENT 83.

https://www.protectcoloradosconstitution.org/donate



Paid for by Protect Colorado’s Constitution.

10/12/2026

𝐕𝐨𝐭𝐞 𝐍𝐨 𝐎𝐧 𝟖𝟑

Meet Dan Gates, the man behind Amendment 83.

He is the head of the Colorado Trappers and Predator Hunters Association. He owns Colorado Rid-a-Critter in Canon City. He makes his living trapping and killing Colorado wildlife, and now he wants your vote.

In the below video clip he says out-of-state groups will spend $10 to $12 million to pass 83. He explains that the point of this Amendment is to stop Coloradans from protecting wildlife when it conflicts with hunting. If this amendment passes, he can take non-lethal rules and limits on cruel methods to court, and a judge, not you, gets the last word.

Do not give him that power. Do not let a trapper rewrite Colorado wildlife policy around baiting, hounding, and killing predators and furbearers.

𝐕𝐨𝐭𝐞 𝐍𝐨 𝐎𝐧 𝟖𝟑

10/10/2026

𝐕𝐎𝐓𝐄 𝐍𝐎 𝐎𝐍 𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝟖𝟑.

When supporters of Amendment 83 say “traditional methods,” this is what they mean. Dogs chasing bears. Bait used to lure them. A bear shot out of a tree. Colorado already banned these.

The ballot does not say “current hunting rules.” It says “traditional methods.” "Traditional Methods" are purposely left undefined. The drafters were asked to define them, and they refused. If they meant the rules we have now, Amendment 83 would say that.

A yes vote does not make the banned "traditional methods" legal the next morning. It puts “traditional methods” into the state constitution. A trapper or houndsman can then take the old bans to court and ask a judge to strike them down. No new vote is required.

Do not be fooled by the wording.

𝐕𝐎𝐓𝐄 𝐍𝐎 𝐎𝐍 𝟖𝟑.

10/10/2026

Great Article explaining the problems with wildlife management in general and with Amendment 83:

https://www.gjsentinel.com/opinion/columns/tammany-hall-cpw-and-the-right-to-hunt-in-colorado/article_d2476de9-e15f-4421-b976-9abf539131e3.html

During the late 19th century and through the mid-20th century, Tammany Hall, New York City’s Democratic political organization, became synonymous with entrenched corruption. Under men like William “Boss” Tweed, Tammany Hall operated on a system of patronage, vote manipulation, threats and intimidation.

Recently, the Center for Biological Diversity (C*D), a nonprofit organization dedicated to the conservation and recovery of wildlife, extensively documented the Tammany Hall culture that exists at Colorado Parks and Wildlife and is understandably seeking a thorough, independent investigation of the agency on the issues that it has identified.

C*D meticulously chronicled a decade of threats and intimidation against university biologists and others who dared to speak out against the destructive wildlife management policies of the agency, as well as the misuse of public funds to influence the outcomes of Colorado elections — violations of Colorado’s Fair Campaign Practices Act. And as damning as this evidence is, I know of one Coloradan who has received threats from CPW leadership and who is so worried about agency retaliation that they refused to allow C*D to document their experience.

This culture of intimidation is helped along by Dan Gates, the head of the Colorado Trappers and Predator Hunters Association, and his fanboys, who routinely use social media to attack pro-wildlife commissioners and others who dare to challenge CPW’s “shoot-them-all-and-let-God-sort-them-out” culture of managing mountain lions, beavers and other ecologically crucial species of wildlife that Colorado Trappers and Predator Hunters Association members like to kill.

This culture of intimidation is also actively enabled by the state Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, which every year sends the message to CPW Commissioners that only those who are compliant, unquestioning, anti-science, anti-wildlife and toe Gates’ and CPW’s party lines will have a chance to be confirmed.

It would be one thing if CPW’s longstanding culture served our wildlife well. But by any objective measure, the agency is comprehensively failing Colorado’s wildlife by promoting the nearly unlimited killing of beaver, foxes, pine martens and other fur bearers, failing to protect bighorn sheep from disease-spreading domestic sheep and permitting the ongoing killing of mountain lions that are crucial to curtailing the spread of always-fatal Chronic Wasting Disease throughout our deer and elk herds. Moreover, throughout decades of neglect, hundreds of species of Colorado’s native wildlife have declined dramatically, many of which are now inexorably headed toward extinction. And last year, scientists documented the collapse of the beaver-willow ecosystem in the Kawuneeche Valley at the headwaters of the Colorado River.

There are many good, decent and conscientious employees at CPW who genuinely care about our wildlife and want to recover, conserve and responsibly manage it. But until the next generation of leadership takes over at CPW, and the culture hopefully becomes one of recovery and conservation rather than endless killing and neglect, Colorado’s wildlife can be expected to continue its spiral downward toward more species extinctions, more spreading of fatal wildlife diseases and more collapsed ecosystems.

Rather than recognize the dire status of wildlife in Colorado and work to recover it, anti-wildlife interests are attempting to lock in — and in many respects even worsen — this dysfunctional system by passing Amendment 83, the so-called Right to Hunt constitutional amendment ballot measure. The Amendment 83 campaign is part of a multi-state culture-war effort by the National R***e Association, Safari Club International and other extreme right-wing groups to establish a constitutional right in Colorado to kill wildlife using cruel and unethical so-called “traditional” practices that have previously been banned by Colorado voters and the state wildlife commission, including:

■ steel-jawed leghold traps;

■ wildlife killing contests;

■ using hounds to hunt bears;

■ killing mother bears in the spring, causing their cubs to become orphans and starve to death;

■ baiting bears with jelly donuts;

■ and who knows, since catching trout using dynamite and a net was once a traditional method of fishing in Colorado, they might try to bring that back, too.

The promoters of Amendment 83 undoubtedly were counting on CPW’s assistance to pass it this year. C*D brought to light compelling evidence that the Colorado Wildlife Council, an entity closely affiliated with CPW and funded by CPW with revenues from hunting and fishing license sales, used substantial amounts of public money to pay for a political campaign in 2024 to successfully defeat Proposition 127, the mountain lion, lynx and bobcat conservation ballot measure. At that time, the CWC was chaired by — you guessed it — Dan Gates. Moreover, documents show that CWC had already begun to use CPW’s public money this year to promote passage of Amendment 83, which constitutes yet another violation of Colorado’s Fair Campaign Practices Act. It took a citizen petition submitted to CPW in September to get the agency to put a halt to CWC’s paid ads promoting Amendment 83 this October.

This November, all of us should put a stop to this cruel, unethical, anti-wildlife power grab. Please go to the polls and soundly reject Amendment 83.

Eric Washburn is a fifth-generation Coloradan and big game hunter. He lives in Steamboat Springs.

10/09/2026

Do not let Dan the Trapper dictate Colorado's wildlife policy! Vote No On 83!!

10/08/2026

𝐍𝐎 𝐍𝐎 𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐋 𝐍𝐎 𝐎𝐍 𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝟖𝟑!!

Florida approved permits to drown beavers. Colorado, don’t let Amendment 83 make this our future.

Florida voters approved Amendment 2, a constitutional right to hunt and fish, in November 2024. In February 2026, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission approved a trapping overhaul that includes a permit allowing beavers to drown or asphyxiate. The Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation says it helped develop Florida’s amendment language. Now that same national lobby is campaigning for Colorado’s Amendment 83. Coloradans deserve to know what happened before we put its agenda into our Constitution.

Florida’s amendment put hunting, fishing and taking wildlife, including by “traditional methods,” into its Constitution as a public right and preferred means of wildlife management. It did not define traditional methods. Before the vote, the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation said the amendment would not “legalize methods of take that are currently illegal,” accused opponents of misinformation and said it coordinated with Florida’s wildlife commission to support the amendment.

Read what that organization wants protected. Its guidance explicitly lists “Protection of traditional hunting methods such as trapping.” An older guide recommends language providing “stronger protection to trapping without actually mentioning trapping.” It acknowledges that trapping is controversial and threatens public support. The strategy was to protect it while avoiding the word. We were right to bring trapping into this debate. The lobby’s own documents proved our point.

That is the warning for Colorado. Amendment 83 also protects “traditional methods” without defining them and makes hunting and fishing the “preferred means” of managing wildlife populations. Hunting and fishing are already legal here, and a no vote keeps them legal. Colorado voters should not have to learn what we protected in a lawsuit after the campaign is over. We deserve the plain truth about trapping before these words go into our Constitution.

Picture a beaver caught by the foot, held underwater and unable to reach air. Its ability to swim and dive offers no escape when a trap prevents it from surfacing. Florida’s approved language expressly allows “the beaver drowning or asphyxiating.” Officials wrote those words and approved that exception, then promoted the overhaul as humane. Calling this humane is an insult to the animal struggling beneath the surface and to everyone expected to accept it. When a national lobby wants trapping defended as a constitutional right, this is the suffering Colorado voters deserve to see.

Now the same lobby is promoting Amendment 83 and criticizing opponents’ “emotional appeals.” You’re damn right this is emotional. We care about our state’s wildlife. We care about what goes into Colorado’s Constitution and who gets to use that language later. Compassion is not misinformation, and concern for wildlife is not something to dismiss because it makes a campaign uncomfortable.

Our beavers should not be held underwater until they die. Colorado voters should not be asked to protect “traditional methods” without being told what those methods involve. Florida has given us a warning, and Colorado has a chance to refuse this lobby’s agenda.

Vote no on Amendment 83. Then help us keep fighting for wildlife protections that cannot be quietly weakened by vague constitutional language.

Donate today at https://www.protectcoloradosconstitution.org/donate.
Every contribution helps us educate voters, expose threats to Colorado’s wildlife and defend humane, science-based policies.

Together, we can stop this amendment and make sure Colorado’s future is not written by a national lobby that calls drowning animals tradition.

Paid for by Protect Colorado’s Constitution.

10/08/2026

NO ON 83!! ALL HANDS IN:

Read our latest newsletter here and HELP DEFEAT AMENDMENT 83!

https://prairieprotectioncolorado.dm.networkforgood.com/emails/4849107