Prop 127 Aims to Halt Shocking Scale of Trophy Hunting of Native Cats in Colorado

Opponents of Prop 127 — the measure to halt killing of lions and bobcats for their heads, hides, and beautiful fur — keep repeating the demonstrably false claim that Colorado already bans trophy hunting. They are trying to reframe lion hunting as some other form of hunting — one that is more legitimate than trophy hunting. As a matter of law and practice, there’s not a lion’s whisker of truth to their rebranding effort.

Trophy hunters have engaged in a concerted effort to wipe clean 100 years of their own writing and sentimental reflections on their hunts. They want to expunge their gleeful picture-taking with the large-bodied and bloodied animals they kill. They want hunting guides to burn brochures or take down web pages that boast of securing a “trophy tom” for their clients.

They want the Safari Club International to pack up the trophy hunting record books until after the votes on Prop 127 are in, and not say a whisper about the Boone & Crockett Club’s 192 trophy entries for Colorado. Perhaps they don’t even want the trophy hunters to invite guests into their dens, where glassy-eyed lions stare back at them from their walls or floor mounts. A drink on the patio will be good enough.

Leaders of the No on 127 campaign sent out a memo some months ago to their brethren asking them to expunge “trophy hunting” references from their websites. While some have complied in this vocabulary whitewash, many haven’t heeded the instructions, perhaps because they are unapologetic about their favored pursuit. 

It’s All About the Trophy

Indeed, it’s not hard to find promotions of “trophy hunting” by the network of professional hunting guides who offer “guaranteed kills” of trophy “toms” to their fee-paying clients, such as this one from Huntin’ Fool. The term “trophy” is ubiquitous among the non-purged sites whose owners charge wealthy hunters $8,000 or more to kill a lion in Colorado.

On the internet, and specifically on the websites of hunting guides, the theme of trophy hunting is inescapable: “This was defiantly (sic) an experience of a lifetime … getting me a trophy Tom.” (Canyon Rim Outfitters); “Book Your Hunt: Mountain lion: Cost depends on “the outfitter’s reputation for producing quality trophies.” A posting online by one lion-hunting guide talks of strapping a dead lion to a horse, with the caption “tying on the trophy.”

The marketing pitch and the images tell us all we need to know.

The argument from some trophy hunters who may eat a morsel or a mound of lion meat does not unwind the truth that lion hunting is almost exclusively a trophy-hunting exercise.

• There is no pretense from the hunting guides about the culinary value of the meat and no promise to pack up the small amount of sinew and muscle that make up the lion for shipment back to New York or California or Louisiana. The guides do, however, have the taxidermists on speed dial. The people who take the carcass and turn it into a cleaned-up trophy for home display are ready to act, no matter the ZIP code of the client.
• If poachers were to eat a bite of bear meat after they kill a bear to sell the animal’s gallbladder or bile for money, to offer a comparison in the field, that doesn’t make them any less of a poacher. Similarly, if a hunter eats an ounce or two of an African lion he shoots at a South African canned hunting lion facility, that doesn’t alter the reality that the purpose of the hunt was trophy procurement.
• “According to the hunters, the trophy refers to the part of the animal such as the head, skin … as proof of their hunting victories … . Trophy hunting may take various forms including ranch hunting, African trophy hunting, and North American trophy hunting…,” according to the World Atlas. “[I]n North America, trophy hunting focuses on the mountain lion, called the puma, panther or cougar.”

Are we to believe that a man travels halfway around the world, or halfway across the country, to claim some muscle meat from a lion? No, he’s led around by a commercial guide to the base of a tree for an upward-facing shot to secure a head and hide, not a pound of flesh. 

No Colorado Law Bans Trophy Hunting of Lions

Let’s be clear about existing Colorado statutes that touch on what can and cannot be left behind by a hunter. Colorado has a wanton waste law, as many states do, forbidding hunters from leaving behind a portion of the carcass and to prevent only the stripping away of commercially valuable parts, such as gall bladders, paws, claws, and other parts of the animal. There is no prohibition on taking an animal for a “trophy.” The word “trophy” is not invoked a single time in the statute. There is no other statute that forbids “trophy hunting.”

Even Colorado Parks and Wildlife uses the term “trophy” in tandem with lion killing. A video the agency made shows how to preserve the skin or hide of a mountain lion or, if they are taking an excursion to Africa, a leopard for preparation by a taxidermist.

Let’s remember that Prop 127 also bans trophy hunting or commercial trapping of bobcats. Are we also to believe that a trapper eats bobcats he catches in a cage trap and then strangles or bludgeons? We know he’s there to sell the fur for commerce, and he tells us that’s why he’s there, but there’s no mention anywhere in their literature of killing the bobcat for the pot.

Under current law, if someone kills a mountain lion and cuts off the head of the male or female and leaves the rest of the body to rot in the woods, that activity would be illegal in Colorado under the wanton waste law. If the trophy hunter packs out the full measure of the animal minus the internal organs, cuts off the head, and sends the head and hide to a taxidermist to prepare a trophy mount, that is not illegal. Nor is it illegal to take the head and the hide and to throw the meat to the dogs who just chased and cornered the lion, as a reward for their sacrifice and their animal-fighting prowess.

• So why would anyone claim that the wanton waste law forbids trophy hunting, when it does no such thing?
• There is an entire industry — taxidermy — built around creating the trophy for home display. Why would this sub-business exist at all if there’s no interest in turning the head and hide of a slain animal into a trophy for home display? And to be clear, the “trophy,” for many lion hunters, is the whole body (from nose to tail) and not just the head.
• Under the terms of the Dog and Cat Meat Trade Prohibition Act, the act of selling the meat of a domesticated dog or cat is a federal crime. That speaks to our common cultural value system that eating dog and cat meat is off the menu in the United States. A domesticated cat is a smaller version of a bobcat, lynx, or lion, and made from the same sinew and muscle as a wild cat.

The bottom line is, hunting of mountain lions is indeed motivated by an interest in securing a trophy, and that’s why about half of all lions killed are by out-of-state hunters who typically spend $10,000 or much more for this opportunity (not only for travel, but also to use the guiding service and the guide’s pack of dogs and GPS equipment).

Mountain lion hunting is trophy hunting in its most ignoble form. Killing an animal for the head and hide, using GPS tracking equipment and packs of dogs, and shooting an animal off a tree limb is not something that mainstream hunters do or even support. This is a fringe activity.

There are rules of sportsmanship and decency, and this practice violates them all. Guided lion hunting with dogs is not really a hunt at all, but a high-tech execution of unoffending animals doing important work that benefits deer and elk and entire ecosystems.

That’s why Prop 127 is on the ballot. And read the fine print. It seeks to ban trophy hunting of lions and bobcats. If you oppose trophy hunting of lions and bobcats, vote YES on Prop 127.