The Right to Hunt, Initiative 302 Gang Rolls Their Trojan Horse to Colorado's Door: Don't Let It In
- AG Morgan
- Jun 24
- 13 min read
"Every collectivist revolution rides in on a Trojan horse of “emergency"… ...This technique of creating emergency is the greatest achievement that demagoguery attains." ~ Herbert Hoover
Whether you hunt and fish in Colorado, as I have for more than three and a half decades, or you simply just care about the proper and responsible conservation and management of Colorado’s rich and diverse wildlife, you should pay really close attention to a particular Trojan Horse that sits at Colorado’s door.
Its name? Colorado Ballot Initiative 302.
In the legendary story of the Trojan Horse, Odysseus the Greek king of the city of Ithaca devised the clever trick of leaving a massive wooden horse outside the walls of Troy to trick the Trojans into bringing it inside their city of Troy. When the people of Troy brought the wooden horse inside their city walls, a large trap door swung open and the Greek army descended and proceeded to overwhelm the Trojan people and capture the city of Troy.
Inside this hollow and rickety frame of a Trojan Horse called Initiative 302 is an insidious package of nonsense awaiting to assault you and your Colorado Constitution. Dropped at Colorado’s doorstep courtesy of out-of-state and Washington DC-based lobbyists and attorneys with their fat wallets. They’re trying to persuade you with vague terms and language to bring this Trojan Horse inside Colorado.
Coloradans are too smart for that.
Ultimately, when you peer inside this hollow shell, Initiative 302 uses the guise of “tradition” and “heritage” protection for hunting and fishing as subtext is to lock an extreme, outdated, and inflexible mandate into Colorado’s Constitution, the state’s governing legal document.
Its subtext is disturbing and remarkably biologically and ecologically short-sighted. What 302 seeks to do is nothing more than to undermine every Coloradans’ democratic right to demand truly responsive and responsible wildlife species conservation and management from Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW).
Furthermore, Initiative 302 threatens to forever prevent holistic, ecosystem-level science with a constitutional shield designed to give constitutional protections to a niche, special-interest activity at the expense of the broader natural environment.
In short, Initiative 302 would ensure that CPW would be handcuffed and mired in lawsuit after lawsuit that would prevent the agency from fulfilling their mission, public mandate, and 10-year strategic plan objectives to conserve and manage wildlife based in responsible and responsive science-based wildlife science.
Who would pay for the hours, days, weeks, and maybe even years of litigation?
You, the Colorado taxpayer, would.
And the ultimate loser? Colorado’s wildlife.
Initiative 302 is in every sense of the term, a Trojan Horse.
On Not Preserving the Status Quo
The 302 Initiative Gang oft repeats that hunting is conservation. They express this idea various ways—”hunters pay for conservation” or “hunters are the true conservationists,” and “hunting is needed to manage wildlife.”
Having hunted since I was sixteen, I heard the mantra from the start — that hunters, and hunting, are indispensable to the conservation of wildlife in America. Decades ago when I was a young, wide-eyed Aldo Leopold wannabe and wildlife undergraduate student, I had professors — most of whom were sportsmen and women — who liked to challenge my cohort to defend the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation (NAMWC). We were, after all, being “groomed” by a program to be the next generation of biologists and administrators of the state’s wildlife agency. So, my young self assumed this exercise was to teach me to not only defend NAMWC, but also to be able to walk the wildlife management talk.
By the time I started to undertake my senior thesis, my thinking had begun to change. I had spent some fantastic summers working on cool, big game telemetry research projects in some unbelievably phenomenal landscapes in a big square state. During the academic year, I worked for a number of graduate students in a cooperative research unit who were conducting research on endangered species and many nongame species. That juxtaposition of two wildlife conservation and management worlds led me to use my senior year thesis requirement to explore the question of whether the NAMWC was sustainable and whether hunting is truly conservation.
Despite being set up for a career as state biologist — something I had dreamt of since I was in my early teens — I questioned whether hunting was merely preserving the system that remains, in large part, still the status quo in wildlife management in the U.S. That system, though not formalized until the mid-1990s by Valerius Geist, was developed to a large extent in the 1920s and 1930s by my idol, Aldo Leopold. While Leopold was one of the first wildlife academics beginning in 1933; the system was developed by hunters, and today is supported financially by hunters, and continues to be operated primarily for the benefit of hunters.
But the status quo no longer serves what modern wildlife management demands.
That is why Colorado’s Initiative 302 is without question a Trojan Horse that seeks to preserve that status quo. More than three decades ago, the NAMWC was showing signs of failing to meet the moment. Wildlife is certainly facing unprecedented challenges today that I didn’t imagine decades ago as an undergraduate wildlife student.
Don't get me wrong here. Hunters deserve credit for their historic role in saving some of America’s “game” species (i.e. species pursued by hunters, such as white-tailed deer, bighorn sheep, elk and pronghorn). Hunters organized and lobbied for game protection laws. Hunters unflinchingly showed willingness to purchase licenses that generated revenue for the enforcement of game laws and management for these species that might have otherwise disappeared.
When the Secret Trap Door Swings Open with Right to Hunt
It’s not my purpose to indict hunters and CPW. After all, I’d be pointing the finger at myself as well. Nevertheless, and to CPW’s credit, leadership has recognized through the recently published CPW 10-Year Strategic Plan that the agency has a hefty responsibility to address the unprecedented critical needs the state’s wildlife and fisheries face under increasingly challenging and unpredictable environmental and social change.
To begin to achieve these goals, CPW must face many logistical and financial challenges internally, in addition to the external demographic and human development changes the state faces. Also to its credit, CPW’s Human Dimensions Research Program (HDRP) has established itself as leader in understanding how scientific research in the human dimensions of wildlife management plays a critical role in modern wildlife conservation and management.
But sadly, Initiative 302 could in many ways thwart the ambitious and necessary goals and objectives established in the CPW Strategic Plan and potentially undermine the important research value of the HDRP’s work. And it’s intentional.
Initiative 302 would complicate modern wildlife management, override alternative conservation methods and measures, and creates high-probability legal conflicts with established Colorado law, CPW regulations, and even local municipal regulations.
If Colorado voters let Initiative 302 inside Colorado’s door, this Trojan Horse could swing its trap door wide open and the deceptive language contained inside Initiative 302 could severely inhibit Colorado CPW from carrying out its public mandate and plans to comprehensively conserve and manage all wildlife for generations to come.
It shouldn’t be lost on anyone that Initiative 302 could severely damage everyone’s future from Generation X to Generation Beta, and beyond.
Not convinced? Please read on.
Initiative 302’s Odysseus is the Wisconsin-based and dubiously-named International Order of T. Roosevelt (IOTR). IOTR is using their big money and power connections from out-of-state, Washington DC, and all across the U.S. to try to convince Coloradans that Initiative 302 is a simple right-to-hunt-and-fish (RTHF) constitutional amendment. And, if you’ve been exposed to one of their “infographic,” IOTR makes false and deceptive statements that suggest that passage of 302 will not change past statutes, policy, and regulations that CPW follows to manage fish and wildlife held in the public trust for all people.
No impacts? Pffft. That’s a lie. A bald-faced lie.
With each frantic post on social media and each guest on their podcasts, that unmistakably rickety Trojan Horse that is being pushed by the Initiative 302 Gang to Colorado’s door is not what it seems.
And you shouldn’t let it in.
The Trojan Horse: Constitutionalizing A Special Right
The primary concern surrounding Colorado Initiative 302 is its elevation of hunting and fishing to constitutionalize it as the “preferred means for responsibly managing fish and wildlife populations” for wildlife management.
Such a statement sounds benign enough.
But is it really that benign?
No, not benign at all.
The torch for constitutional RTHF amendments has been largely carried by the Washington D.C.- based Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF), long known as a lobby group for the guns and ammunition industry. Among its many stated goals is to support states, including Colorado currently, to pass constitutional amendments that “legally shields traditional sporting activities and restricts state agencies from sidelining them."
Some of the CSF’s stated goals using constitutional amendments for RTHF are, not surprisingly, contained in the vaguely expressed and implied language of Initiative 302, including:
• Preventing CPW, other state agencies, or local governments from using non-lethal, emotion-driven, or unproven methods (such as artificial wildlife contraception programs or excessive use of government sharpshooters) as their primary wildlife control measures;
• Shielding hunting and fishing from evolving bans, often explicitly protecting the use of archery, “traditional” harvesting methods, or using dogs;
• Codifying wildlife as a resource held in the public trust, rooting the outdated NAWMC directly into Colorado’s Constitution, the state’s highest legal document;
• Because Colorado has a statute declaring hunting and fishing as the “preferred means” of management, Initiative 302 as a constitutional amendment would solidify and permanently “lock in” that statute against future legislative or judicial “overreach;” and
• Because the Colorado Constitution sits higher in the legal hierarchy than ordinary state statutes, it ensures that an RTHF amendment supersedes any contradictory lower-level statutes and regulations (such as local municipality bans on hunting or fishing within county lines) are preempted.
Wildlife in Colorado is held in the public trust and belongs to all citizens, with only a small fraction of the population actively participating in hunting (~300,000), though three times as many Coloradans participate in fishing (~950,000). By permanently writing into the state constitution that lethal take as the “preferred method” for managing fish and wildlife, the measure essentially prioritizes one specific, recreational use of wildlife over all others. In the state statute, the key language is “primary methods of effecting necessary wildlife harvest.” State statutes can change to reflect changing social values about wildlife and the biological and ecological needs of wildlife populations. A constitutional amendment could challenge necessary conservation measures CPW deems necessary if it seems to conflict with hunting and fishing.
And the only place where that question would be settled would be in state court.
The IOTR and the rest of the big-monied, out-of-state Initiative 302 Gang often point to the importance of “science-based management.” However, constitutionalizing hunting and fishing methods restricts the scientific flexibility that wildlife biologists need to manage Colorado’s 960 species, and not just prioritize fish and game species management, which is the deliberately unnamed thrust of Initiative 302.
That a new constitutional amendment automatically takes precedence over any conflicting past or new state statutes is well-established by constitutional case law in 100s and 100s of cases. Initiative 302 could supersede any past statutes passed by the state legislature and those by citizens, like you and me. It could also impede regulations passed by CPW commissioners if the courts determine that those regulations are not consistent with the new constitutional amendment.
Under long-standing Colorado case law, the state’s courts hold the explicit power and duty of judicial review. This authority allows the courts to invalidate past or new wildlife laws and regulations promulgated by CPW that the court deems exceed or violate the new constitutional boundaries established by the amendment’s deliberately vague and undefined language.
Because Initiative 302 designates hunting and fishing as the “preferred method” of managing wildlife and fish, it could not only tie the hands of CPW and other agencies, but could also force local governments to manage wildlife such as deer and bears in city parks, county parks, and their conservation areas by hunting (and trapping) these animals rather than using widely utilized, proven safe and effective, non-lethal wildlife management techniques.
IOTR: Dirty Hands Determined to Undermine Responsible and Responsive Science Based Wildlife Conservation and Management
The Wisconsin-based IOTR has had their hands in many such RTHF cases in other states and local communities where voters were duped into voting for similar constitutional amendments on the ballot in other states. And these out-of-state interlopers are leading the charge here in Colorado.
And there’s no reason to believe their hands won’t continue to meddle in Colorado’s wildlife business if Initiative 302 somehow manages to become a constitutional amendment in this coming Fall’s election cycle.
In Florida, the IOTR boasts using that state’s RTHF constitutional amendment (2024) to stop local citizens and the town council from protecting sea turtles from nesting disturbances from May to October on San Marcos Island. This despite local citizens’ efforts to reduce night surf fishing. Some of the disturbances include bright lights that cause nesting adults become disoriented and abandon their nests. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) stated that prohibiting fishing on San Marco Island to protect sea turtles would likely be ruled unconstitutional based on Florida’s 2024 constitutional amendment. Rather than pushback on the need to protect sea turtles, FWC capitulated in fear of having defend itself in a lawsuit.
In Wisconsin, IOTR boasts using that state’s RTHF constitutional amendment in February 2021 to force the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) to hold a hunt, overriding the agency’s wildlife professional’s high level of biological concern. This despite WDNR’s objections that the hunt would occur in the midst of the breeding season which could impact production of young.
Forced by the lawsuit filed by Hunter Nation — its then president, the current CEO of IOTR — the rushed season resulted in an estimated 14-27% drop in the species population.
In that case, WDNR had established a harvest quota. However, once the court ordered WDNR to hold the hunt, more than twice the number of animals for which there was a quota were killed in a mere 72 hours. Not only did the adult and individuals harvested exceed the quota by 82%, but the production of young that year was drastically reduced because of the impact on social structures. Additionally, independent researchers warned that the official statistics likely didn’t account for unreported and “cryptic” poaching.
It is widely considered by conservationists and scientific researchers that because the WDNR was handcuffed by the state’s constitutionally-protected RTHR and a judge who refused to issue an injunction to resolve the conflicts, the agency was forced to go forth with a hunt that result in a biologically unsustainable and poorly managed hunt. Population impacts were considered even more severe when combined with the poaching that likely occurred in addition to the regulated harvest.
Hunter Nation’s lawsuit also fractured WDNR’s relationship with the sovereign Ojibwe tribes, who had a treaty-backed claim to 50% of the harvest quota. The judge refused to issue an injunction to delay the hunt.
CPW has the daunting task of managing over 960 species, of which the vast majority are nongame wildlife (920 species; 95.8 percent). By contrast, only a small fraction (40 species; 4.2 percent) are regulated game species.
CPW has the additional burden of responsibility to ensure that the more than 200 species identified as Colorado’s “species of greatest conservation need” receive the necessary focus to ensure that populations remain viable now and in the future. The Colorado Natural Heritage Program (CNHP), which tracks species population and habitat distribution and abundance in partnership with CPW, lists 34 species as “extremely vulnerable” The CNHP distinguishes Colorado as having a high conservation responsibility for 15 of those species.
Initiative 302 could be in total conflict with a century of CPW continually developing fish and wildlife science to guide the management of these species and their aquatic and terrestrial habitats.
If the 302 Trojan Horse rolls its way in, the secret trap door could swing open and Initiative 302 could overturn and threaten how CPW sustainably manages and conserve all fish and wildlife and their habitats in Colorado. This, in deference to having to prioritize management of game mammals and game fish species.
Tradition and Heritage Are Important. They Just Don’t Belong In Colorado’s Constitution
Colorado law already recognizes that hunting and fishing and the taking of game and fish are an important part of Colorado’s cultural heritage and traditions, provided they are done in concert with the conservation and protection of those species and their habitats.
As undergraduate wildlife students and throughout our professional careers, we learn that hunting and fishing have important social and ecological values. However, those values necessitate a need to balance ecosystem stewardship through responsive and responsible science-based wildlife management. Initiative 302’s hidden agenda to elevate hunting and fishing could jeopardize that.
The principle and right to hunt and fish have been the law in Colorado for generations and are highly regulated activities. Nonetheless, CPW is charged under Title 33 state statutes to protect, preserve, enhance and manage all wildlife resources of the state.
Successful wildlife conservation and management requires that CPW have broad management flexibility to respond to change. Under Initiative 302, CPW would be handcuffed from being able to continually respond to the known and unforeseeable environmental conditions, development pressures, and changing demographics that have and will continue to have impacts on fish and wildlife in Colorado into the foreseeable future.
Part of that management strategy will always include utilizing hunting and fishing as a tool among many that CPW’s professional wildlife managers use to support healthy game species populations. And no matter whether you fish and hunt or not, the Initiative 302 Trojan Horse contains such deliberately vague and undefined language that could actually endanger our way of life in Colorado.
Constitutional amendments to protect the RTHF can indeed have unintended detrimental consequences for both the hunting and fishing itself and wildlife conservation.
Legal analysis in Colorado suggests this constitutional amendments could introduce legal ambiguities that would create friction with long-term management goals while failing to support changing and important social values and recreational opportunities.
Probably Not the Last Word But…
The Initiative 302 Gang has been desperately trying to convince would-be signers of their ballot initiative that current laws and regulations. and any proposed in the future should those actions be necessary, would be unimpeded.
Remember this and repeat it: “This is a lie.”
In comprehensive wildlife conservation and management, there is no single “preferred” method for managing wildlife. Likewise, there is no consensus among thousands of wildlife scientists in Colorado and across the U.S. what constitutes, as stated in Initiative 302, “sound scientific wildlife conservation and management.” The standard of care relies on scientific biological and ecological research that varies by species, population monitoring, habitat management and social values.
Once lethal management methods are entrenched at the constitutional level, it becomes incredibly difficult for the state to adapt to modern ecological challenges, such as protecting declining species or prioritizing non-lethal coexistence strategies. It becomes even more incredibly difficult to remove a constitutional amendment once enshrined in the state’s constitution.
Furthermore, it creates a dangerous legal pathway where advocates could use the constitution to sue Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) and disrupt balanced, responsible, and responsive science-based conservation decisions whenever their specific harvesting rights are challenged.
It cannot be overstated that, in Colorado, the state constitution is the supreme law of the state, meaning any state statute or legislative act that conflicts with the Colorado Constitution is invalid and cannot be enforced.
Don’t be fooled. Initiative 302 is a Trojan Horse. Don’t let it in Colorado’s door.