Summary: The Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation and Safari Club International have threatened legal action against the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission for unlawfully passing an extreme furbearer bag limit reduction without proper public notice or comment.
The Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation (SAF), along with litigation partner Safari Club International (SCI), sent a letter to the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission to put the them on notice of our significant concerns and potential legal action regarding the commission’s recent adoption of a daily bag limit of two furbearers for all legal species in Colorado. The commission’s decision is legally flawed and vulnerable to legal challenges under Colorado’s Administrative Procedure Act.
How Did the CPW Commission Violate Public Comment Protocols?
On May 29, 2026, the commission provided public notice that it would consider adoption of new daily bag limits for furbearers statewide. It gave the public two choices on which to comment: ·
- Alternative 1: a daily bag limit of 15 furbearers, which was recommend by Colorado Parks and Wildlife Department (CPW) staff and considered “conservative, sustainable, and consistent with scientific literature”
- Alternative 2: a tiered approach with a daily bag limit of eight or four furbearers, depending on the species, which was offered at the request of some commissioners.
It was these two options that the public submitted comments on.
Why Is the New Two-Furbearer Daily Bag Limit Illegal?
However, at the July 17 Commission meeting, the commission instead adopted a limit of two—an 86.7% reduction from Alternative 1 and a 75% reduction from most of Alternative 2. Nothing in the notice suggested that any commissioner was considering a uniform limit so far below either alternative. Because the daily limit of two furbearers falls well outside the range of the proposals provided to the public for consideration and comment, interested parties had no fair chance to comment on its practical, economic, enforcement, or conservation implications.
Which Commissioner Pushed the Unlawful Furbearer Limit?
Specifically, Commissioner Becky Niemiec offered a motion to amend the proposal to reduce the daily bag limits. Of course, her motion did not suggest reopening public comment, despite the substantive loss of harvest opportunity that she proposed. Commissioner Niemiec tried to justify her proposal by suggesting that ensuring hunting and trapping opportunities and sustained state-level populations of a species “are not the only outcomes that the public cares about with regard to wildlife management.”
Yet these are the very outcomes that Commissioner Niemiec, as a member of the commission, is tasked with considering and advancing. Even more, Commissioner Niemiec argued that a bag limit of two would “maintain social acceptance, to make sure people feel better about hunting and trapping furbearers and about our policy decisions.” To top it off, her proposal relied upon a study which that she conductedand that was not a part of the record. Her focus on other issues and values violates her obligations under the law.
How Is SAF Fighting Back Against Anti-Hunting Extremism?
“Animal-rights extremists have shifted their sights to state wildlife commissions in recent years, and Colorado is one of the proving grounds for their updated playbook,” said Michael Jean, Litigation Counsel at the Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation. “Fortunately, the commission is still bound by its statutory authorities, including adequate notice and opportunity to comment. We’re happy to remind them of just what those authorities are.”
SAF and SCI have respectfully demanded that the commission re-notice and reconsider the furbearer-bag limit vote at the next commission meeting.
The Sportsmen’s Alliance guarantees hunting, fishing, and trapping for the American sportsman now and forever. We’re there when sportsmen need us most. We are the only organization specifically created to protect the individual hunter, angler, and trapper – no matter the threat. We will never compromise when it comes to defending our way of life in the courts, in the legislatures, in the public square, and at the ballot box. We make this promise to the American sportsman: we will never give up and never give in while proudly securing our future against those seeking to destroy our values, beliefs, and traditions.
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