It’s a Halloween horror movie in your yard as starving, emaciated deer desperately forage for food. Pillaging your petunias, stripping your bushes, and the very bark from your trees as high as they can reach, ravenous deer are trampling your emerald zoysia while ripping your prize flowers right out of their pots.
The timid forest creatures you’ve fought to protect from hunters have become desperate wild animals.
Unfortunately, your enlightenment about desperate animals came too late for Fluffy, the beloved family kitty.
You shooed her outside this morning despite her reluctance to “go”. Turns out the reluctance you chalked up to the neighbor’s running sprinklers was more about a pair of very skinny coyotes currently arguing over the chunks of bloody white fur they’ve scattered across the backyard.
Oh no, Fluffy!
OK, Stephen King, I’m not.
But I’m familiar with what happens when we continually encroach on wild animals without considering the consequences.
Living in Miami, I quickly learned the splash of a tennis ball into a canal or lake wasn’t just an invitation for a retriever to play ball. It was also the equivalent of ringing the dinner bell for the caiman that moved into our neighborhood as more of the Everglades became 36th Street. Like other species introduced into Florida through the exotic pet trade, they had adapted to their new environment. Adaptability is why Florida has python roundups and the Florida FWC holds their Lionfish Challenge.
That’s a long way to go to say that when humans and wild animals intersect, wildlife management isn’t optional; it’s a necessity.
Today’s wildlife management appears to be done in one of two ways: via scientific study or through the ballot box.
Scientific management demands something that almost always loses to emotion: facts. Many ballot box decisions are based on emotion.
Facts remind us that without effective management the quality of wildlife is profoundly dimished. Diminishment can mean anything from parasitic infestations to starvation via overpopulation.
That’s as true for the overpopulated deer of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, as it is for the animals on Colorado’s Front Range.
In fact, residents of “the Vineyard” have set their normally liberal politics aside to authorize hunting (tightly regulated) to reduce the herd’s population. They’ve recognized responsible wildlife management sometimes requires the harvesting of excess animals.
Harvesting, whether we’re talking deer, antelope or Aunt Tillie’s tomatoes, requires something’s death. But some oppose hunting, whatever the reason. .
Consequently, protecting the right to hunt and fish remains a continuing battle.
This election cycle, it’s being fought in a state you’d expect to understand the whole “circle of life” thing: Colorado.
Colorado residents will be voting to accept or reject Amendment 83.
Amendment 83 “establishes a right in the Colorado Constitution to fish and hunt certain wildlife, and establishes hunting and fishing as the preferred means of managing fish and wildlife populations.”
It does not apply to nonage species, endangered species or any animals illegal to hunt under federal law. It doesn’t change existing laws regarding private property. If passed, it would allow the state to “regulate hunting, fishing and wildlife management if necessary for sound scientific reasons, public safety, or to preserve future hunting and fishing opportunities.”
“Wait a minute,” you say, “Colorado’s all about hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, and stuff, right?”
Yes…but Colorado, like the 24 other states that have already adopted similar legislation, is no stranger to ballot box biology or its negative impact on wildlife.
The Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, far more than familiar with the problem than me, is urging all Coloradans, whether they hunt or fish, to vote for Amendment 83. That’s because Amendment 83 requires 55% of the cast votes to pass.
This constitutional protection isn’t just for the benefit of hunters and anglers, it’s also for the benefit of the state’s wildlife. Wildlife management is expensive, and Colorado’s outdoor community generated $146.8 million for conservation via excise taxes and license sales.
That’s 70% of Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s total budget and 85% of the budget for wildlife conservation efforts.
The CSF’s neither kidding nor exaggerating when they say “protecting the right to hunt and fish protects the very system that makes conservation possible.”
As always, we’ll keep you posted.
—Jim Shepherd