Episode 712: Colorado Loses Spring Cougar Season at Critical Time…Talk Us Off the Ledge!

What this episode covers

As we’ve documented on previous episodes, Colorado is attempting to ban ALL mountain lion hunting by ballot initiative this November. The antis have reverted to the same playbook they used to pass wolf reintroduction – let the uneducated and emotionally swayed public decide the fate of sustainable use hunting and conservation. The recipe is one for a ecological disaster. So, when I heard that Colorado just did away with it’s spring mountain lion season (as well as the use of electronic calls) I was pretty pissed. Sportsmen’s Alliance Associate Director of Communications and passionate houndsman Naomi Hersh joins us this week to help explain why Colorado Parks and Wildlife made the decision to do away with the spring season and electronic calls.  A Coloradan herself, she attended the recent commission meeting where this was discussed and decided on. With the ballot initiative looming, why would CPW do such a think at this critical time? Lets me frank, the anti hunting community celebrated it as a huge victory and it certainly has added momentum to their campaign to end cougar hunting. So did CPW miscalculate how this would be perceived in the public eye and why did they find it necessary to end the spring season to begin with? Will I leave the conversation as full of piss and vinegar as I initially felt? For the record, I’m a Texan who has hunted the Colorado spring season, so maybe my own personal experience has me more fired up than the average hunter, but anytime we lose hunter opportunity you know which side of the isle you’ll find me on. And we lost opportunity here, so how can we spin this as a good thing? Plus, what about the fallout for the entire West if Colordans do somehow ban cougar hunting via a ballot initiative? Naomi gives us her take on whether CPW sees the value and importance of mountain lion harvest or whether they’ve been overrun with anti hunting commissioners and division leaders due to their anti hunting governor Polis and his animal rights activist husband. Lots to peel back from behind the scenes on this one. We wrap it up by discussing some of our own personal experiences with the hounds we love to chase through the mountains as avid sportsmen.