Opinion: Amendment 83 isn’t just about hunting, and will handcuff wildlife science

This November, Colorado voters will be asked to amend the state constitution to govern how wildlife is managed and harvested. Amendment 83 would guarantee a right to hunt and fish and extend that right to managing or removing wildlife using “traditional methods.” 

Proponents would like you to think that’s a modest, even uncontroversial idea. But it’s not. Colorado has a proud hunting and angling heritage, and regulated, science-based hunting and fishing are indeed standard tools of wildlife management. 

But 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 measure goes further by severely limiting wildlife biologists’ existing toolkit to manage wildlife. Novel threats require a flexible toolbox. Emerging infectious diseases such as chronic wasting disease in deer or whirling disease in trout require management tools that have little to do with hunting or fishing. Invasive species such as zebra mussels are typically controlled by chemical, biological and other means that are neither hunting nor fishing.

Yet Amendment 83 specifies that hunting and fishing will become the preferred management methods for all these species. A “one size fits all” approach to wildlife management is not only naive but also ties the hands of the very experts trained for this purpose.

This misguided amendment constrains CPW’s and the General Assembly’s authority by making scientific regulation, or democratic policy-setting, on wildlife management effectively impossible. Under Amendment 83, the state’s wildlife agency could only regulate hunting, fishing or trapping if a law is “necessary” for sound scientific conservation, public safety or preserving hunting and fishing opportunities.

Those phrases sound reasonable. But they fail to address two fundamental questions: Who decides what counts as necessary and against what standard? The amendment doesn’t say, leaving the decision in unclear hands. Wildlife policy should be informed by trained wildlife biologists and guided by sound science.

A constitutional provision should be clear enough that citizens, agencies and courts all understand what it requires. Amendment 83 fails that basic test. 

As currently written, it is impossible to predict how it would affect CPW’s authority to respond to disease outbreaks and invasive species, address conflicts with recovering species or adjust management as conditions on the ground change. That unpredictability is not simply a minor drafting flaw in the amendment. It’s a dangerous misstep that would result in years of legal uncertainty for Colorado’s wildlife, ecosystems and the people who depend on them.

Defenders of Wildlife supports hunting and fishing. We do not support amending Colorado’s constitution with vague, untested language that inhibits the necessary work of wildlife professionals and shuts out future public input on how that management should evolve. 

Amendment 83 asks Coloradans to trade away flexibility, science and an established democratic process for a constitutional guarantee that nobody — including its own drafters — can fully define. That is not a trade Colorado voters should make.

Stefan Ekernas, of Denver, is the vice president of species conservation and coexistence at Defenders of Wildlife and oversees conservation projects and wildlife management initiatives for endangered species throughout the Rockies.

The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy. Learn how to submit a column. Reach the opinion editor at opinion@coloradosun.com.

Follow Colorado Sun Opinion on Facebook.