Ensuring Colorado’s furbearer policies are science-based
By Dr. ELAINE LESLIE
It’s a sad fact that the kit fox has disappeared from our state. What’s even more concerning is that Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) has made no course corrections from this avoidable tragedy. And so, the agency continues down this same path with our state’s 17 remaining furbearer species, all while claiming that its actions are “science-based.”
Diving into the state’s claim, you’ll find that it is less than accurate. Science requires data, and rigorous collection methods followed by thoughtful analysis. It is not evident that the state of Colorado collects long-term meaningful data on the very furbearer species that is assigns bag limits to for hunting and trapping.
CPW uses voluntary data gleaned from the 39% of furbearer hunters and trappers who participate in its optional survey to make policy decisions. It doesn’t consider the additional ways animals like kit foxes, bobcats, weasels, and badgers die. These animals can die by disease, predation, habitat loss, poisons like anticoagulants, fragmentation, vehicle collisions, and from being killed on private lands under a “nuisance” statute. And this does not include non-target trapping where animals are most likely discarded and not reported. And many people do not realize that hunting and trapping of these species happens right up to the boundaries of our Colorado national parks and within some of our park units.
When an agency cannot confidently quantify major categories of mortality, it cannot credibly claim to know the full burden imposed by its policies. That’s not science-based management. It is speculation, and the stakes for Colorado wildlife are too high to gamble with.
Furbearers are essential to the health of Colorado’s wild places and to urban environments. Foxes, weasels, and badgers help suppress rodents. Carnivores and scavengers influence prey behavior in ways that have kept our state’s ecosystems thriving for thousands of years. Their value lies not only in their pelts, but in their ecological function, and ecological function can be diminished long before a species disappears.
Kit foxes are now gone. That loss should have prompted a more precautionary approach, but it hasn’t. And the loss of a species is bad enough to a state that touts importance on biodiversity. The cost of recovering lost species is becoming less and less viable in a state and country that is experiencing economic declines and political divides.
CPW continues to rely on this weak logic: the animals are still here, reported deaths appear low, therefore current policy must be acceptable. That isn’t a scientific conclusion based upon rigorous inventory or monitoring practices. It’s a defense of the status quo. The same problem extends to commercialization. CPW has offered no clear scientific evidence that commercial fur markets are biologically necessary for any of our state’s furbearer species. It hasn’t shown that commercial killing improves population health, advances ecological integrity, or serves to define conservation objectives.
Recent CPW Commission discussions have further exposed these real policy weaknesses. When pressed on significant data gaps, agency staff responded by proposing a 15-animal daily bag limit instead of unlimited take. They failed to show a scientific basis for that number. Without a clear biological rationale, that limit appears to be an administrative tactic to rein in the public concerned with unlimited killing, rather than ecological importance of a species and their habitat.
That lack of data on mortality extends to poorly understood species such as ringtails and weasels, and more familiar species like beavers, who provide invaluable ecological services by improving water storage, drought resilience, and wildfire buffering as discussed in numerous peer-reviewed publications.
Colorado’s wildlife belongs to the people of Colorado.
Colorado’s wildlife is an economic engine — attracting wildlife watchers and outdoor enthusiasts from across the nation and the world. These animals are public-trust resources, and the burden should rest with the state to demonstrate that its policies are ecologically justified, precautionary, and transparent. The current policies of CPW in no way reflect the principles of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation.
As it stands, CPW can’t tell its constituents how many of our state’s furbearers are dying and being killed and therefore can’t claim its decisions are science-based. The most responsible move it could take right now is to tighten limits, halt commercial sales that lead to overexploitation, conduct population inventories, improve monitoring, and acknowledge that the evidence does not support business as usual. We also expect our governor and the commission to fully fund the agency in order to protect and manage Colorado’s wildlife in a manner that the public expects.
Colorado can do better. After losing kit foxes, it should. Which species is next?
Dr. Elaine Leslie is retired Agency Chief of Biological Resources, National Park Service, and a resident of Durango.