As a hunter myself, I understand their frustration.

But reducing non-resident tags, as Andrew Carpenter suggests, takes us in the wrong direction. The greatest threat to hunting now and in the future is the loss of habitat.

Private lands provide up to 80% of the habitat for all wildlife species, including the critical winter range that’s the limiting factor for most big game populations. Yet these family farms and ranches are struggling for economic survival and in many places are under immense development pressure.

According to the American Farmland Trust, Colorado is on track to lose approximately a half-million acres of open land in the next two decades. Other states have similarly alarming projections. As these lands disappear, so does the wildlife they support.

Income generated by providing access and outfitting services to out-of-state hunters is one of the few economic lifelines keeping ranches and habitats intact.

As New Mexico rancher Jack Diamond explained, “Without non-resident hunters, we couldn’t survive at this point in the ranching business. I don’t want to see this place subdivided, but we’d have to consider that as a last resort.”

David Olde, also a rancher from New Mexico, concurred: “We ended up with so many elk that we had to reduce our cattle. If I can’t sell hunts, what can I do—turn it into ranchettes?”

For the fourth-generation Bramwell family ranch in Colorado, hunting income is an integral part of their operation.

“Our out-of-state clients have been coming here to hunt for generations,” Darla Bramwell said. “These migratory animals do not care whose grass they are eating or whose fences they tear down as they come from forest lands to eat in our hay meadows at night. Without the income from the non-resident hunters, something would have to give.”

Most states already heavily favor resident hunters, both in draw quotas and license fees. In Colorado, for example, residents are now allocated 75% of licenses while non-residents receive only 25%. Further, non-residents typically pay hundreds of dollars more per license than residents. In Colorado a resident bull elk tag is $61. A non-resident bull elk tag costs $760.

Several things happen when non-resident licenses are further reduced. First, it squeezes the bottom line of family farms and ranches that support wildlife and depend on hunting for a portion of their income.

Second, it harms local livelihoods and rural economies. Visiting hunters outspend resident hunters by a large margin, supporting local restaurants, hotels, stores, outfitting services and the local tax base in rural communities.

As Bramwell said, “When our out-of-state hunters come here, they not only support our family but they support our community. They buy local gifts, food, fuel, lodging, meat processing and taxidermy work.”

Diamond’s operation supports between seven to 10 guides from August through December. “These are good-paying jobs and the money generated is all spent locally in the two counties we live in,” he said. “We buy gas, propane, groceries. We also pay state gross receipts tax on the entire hunt.”

Third, state wildlife agencies depend on the high license fees they charge out-of-state hunters.

Fourth, the loss of visiting hunters would remove incentives for prospective ranch buyers to invest in conserving and managing land for wildlife.

Finally, it would also mean more hunters crowding public lands and forcing elk to seek refuge on private lands, reducing hunter opportunities and creating a lower-quality hunt experience.

Pulling the economic rug out from under private lands and wildlife isn’t the answer. So, what is a better solution?

We need to increase, not decrease, incentives for landowners to conserve habitat and provide hunting opportunities. We should bolster, not undermine, the role of hunting in supporting agricultural lands and rural economies. And we need to improve wildlife habitat on public lands with better management of our forests and rangelands.

The future of hunting—and wildlife—both depend on landowners and sportsmen working together to sustain our remaining wild and working lands.

Lesli Allison is a contributor to Writers on the Range, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring conversation about the West. She is CEO of the Western Landowners Alliance, a West-wide, landowner-led organization that supports working lands, connected landscapes and native species. www.westernlandowners.org.

While some business owners aren’t sweating it, John Agnew has a less sanguine view of the effect REI’s presence may have on his snowboard and outdoor gear shop on Main Street once it opens in early 2025. The Seattle-based chain has 181 locations and reported nearly $4 billion in revenue last year.

“They’ll eat up a lot of goggle, helmet and snowboard sales,” said Agnew, who founded The Boarding Haus in downtown Durango in 1995. “I had to fight for many years to get the brands I want.”

REI, which has several locations in Front Range cities, has expanded its mountain market footprint in recent years, opening outposts in Dillon and then Glenwood Springs. The next-closest REI to Durango is an older location in Grand Junction, 170 miles away.

In the eyes of Kendrick Williamson, who oversees operations at Gardenswartz Outdoors just a couple of blocks south of Agnew’s store, the opening of REI there is not a direct threat to his nearly century-old downtown business.

“We’re not going to be losing a lot of customers — there’s not a lot of overlap,” Williamson said, as customers browsed a wide selection of fishing poles, Stetson hats and knives on an early fall afternoon. “People are pretty loyal to the local concept here.”

Gardenswartz sells hunting rifles and ammunition, which are not available at REI. Plus, Williamson noted, the new REI location will be on Durango’s south side — away from the tourist-heavy Main Street in the city of 20,000.

“They’re not in the epicenter,” he said.

The epicenter is the 10-block stretch of shops and restaurants, where hundreds of people empty out of the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad depot daily in the warm season to stroll and shop in the city’s historic district.

Tim Walsworth, executive director of the Durango Business Improvement District, said he’d been monitoring the situation on behalf of the businesses his organization represents.

There are more than a dozen sporting goods stores already in the city, which is surrounded by square mile upon square mile of wilderness that beckons campers, anglers, rafters, skiers and hikers.

The improvement district recently crunched the sales numbers for the sporting goods sector in Durango. It found that more than $23 million worth of merchandise was sold last year, down just slightly from $24 million-plus in 2021, Walsworth said. Those figures compare to less than $19 million in pre-pandemic 2019.

The state’s outdoor recreation industry generates $37 billion in consumer spending each year and contributes 511,000 direct jobs, according to data from the Colorado Office of Economic Development & International Trade.

“Our existing local sporting goods stores are concerned, of course, but also have spent many years cultivating their customers and providing good service and products,” Walsworth said. “They know they will have to step up their game.”

Similar competitive concerns cropped up when Walmart and Home Depot came to Durango, but Walsworth said the two national chains “did not cause local businesses to close.”

“We are worried that this could impact the viability of some of our existing sporting goods stores,” he said. “But again, they have years of local experience and tons of local customers, plus better visibility by being located in the heart of our town.”

“Even so,” Walsworth said, “we expect REI to take some market share due to their name recognition and that they already have members here.”

When the improvement district first heard about REI’s interest in Durango, it reached out to a sporting goods store in Flagstaff, Arizona, and learned that REI claimed about 20% of the market during its first year in town — and about 10% annually after that.

REI currently has 9,000 members in the Durango area, according to REI spokeswoman Megan Behrbaum. Durango will be the co-op’s 10th location in Colorado.

“Product assortment will broadly include camp, cycle, run, climb and snow sports — also similar to other stores in the state,” Behrbaum said. “The store will also have a section dedicated to Re/Supply, our used gear and apparel offering.”

REI can co-exist peacefully in markets with established outdoor retailers, she said.

“We don’t believe it is a simple scenario of big retailers driving out smaller retailers, but we do recognize our presence can create competition,” Behrbaum said.

Corry Mihm, a project manager with the Summit Economic Partnership in Summit County, said the opening of REI in Dillon in 2017 has produced no definitive negative impact on local outdoor recreation businesses.

“We have seen a couple of mom-and-pop sporting goods stores close, but it is difficult to say exactly why — it could be pandemic impacts, aging and tiring of the owners or landlord renewal issues,” Mihm said. “We have seen all of these issues impact local business but don’t have specific store-by-store information.”

But Agnew, The Boarding Haus owner, cringes at yet another big-box retailer setting up shop in Durango, which sits just a half-hour north of the New Mexico line.

He worries about what it’s doing to Durango’s character — and to its sense of self-identity.

“Part of the charm was the mom-and-pop businesses,” Agnew said. “This is another tick towards wiping that out.”

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The latest federal numbers on the industry also show that Colorado’s outdoor economy grew by 19.9% last year, the sixth largest increase nationwide.

For the first time since the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis has released data on outdoor recreation, the industry’s sales crossed the $1 trillion mark.

“This is a historic day for the outdoor economy,” Chris Perkins, vice president of programs at the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, said in a Nov. 17 news conference.

Perkins said ORR, a national coalition that represents more than 110,000 outdoor businesses, had a sense from members’ reports and anecdotes that 2022 was a good year. The federal numbers released last week confirm that, he said.

The recreation covered by the economic review includes bicycling, boating, hiking, fishing, hunting and snow sports. Other outdoor activities focus on motorcycles, all-terrain and recreational vehicles.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis in the Commerce Department issued its first-ever report about the outdoor recreation industry in 2018. Former Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner was a sponsor of the legislation that directed the Commerce Department to issue the report, which goes out annually.

Jessica Turner, president of ORR, said the economic numbers help buttress the industry’s efforts to gain congressional support for money and new policies aimed at growing the outdoor recreation economy.

“I think we’ve always known that this industry is special. It connects people with nature. It makes them healthy and happy. It connects people with family and friends,” Turner said. “But having the actual economic data that takes our industry from a nice-to-have on the weekends to a need-to-have for community jobs has been transformational.”

The new federal analysis found that outdoor recreation supported almost 5 million jobs nationwide, or 3.2%, of U.S employees, in 2022. The numbers in Colorado were 129,773 employees for 4.3% of the state workforce and roughly $6.9 billion in wages.

“We are grateful to the BEA for gathering this data showing clearly that the outdoor industry is a critical economic driver and source of jobs for both Colorado and the country,” Conor Hall, director of Colorado’s Outdoor Recreation Industry Office, said in a statement.

Hall said the state continues to promote stewardship, more equitable access to the outdoors, a healthy workforce and “sustainable growth of the industry.”

Many outdoor businesses were hurt when the coronavirus pandemic first hit because ski resorts, campgrounds and other venues were closed or restricted. Manufacturing of equipment, boats and other goods were affected.

But outdoor recreation boomed in Colorado and across the country during the height of the pandemic when COVID-19 restrictions limited other activities. In the summer of 2020, the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable pitched outdoor recreation as a way to help rejuvenate the economy.

And recreation organizations and advocates continue to champion outdoor recreation as a means of diversifying local economies, especially in rural areas. The bipartisan America’s Outdoor Recreation Act has passed the U.S. Senate and is scheduled to be heard Nov. 30 by the House Natural Resources Committee.

The legislation would, among several things, invest in modernizing campgrounds; increase access to public lands for recreation; and provide technical and financial  help to rural communities near recreation areas.

Turner with the recreation roundtable said the act includes proposals for reservation and data systems to better manage recreation sites.

“We need better policies and better management tools to ensure that the overused, highly visited places are getting the management they need to control that and help with resources and that the underused, amazing landscapes that people don’t know about are getting visitation,” Turner with the recreation roundtable said.

Updated at 10 a.m. Nov. 23 to correct amount of wages of the outdoor recreation industry in Colorado in  2022.

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The bill, called The Trust the Science Act, was included in the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for the 2024 fiscal year, which House members passed Nov. 3 — less than two months before Colorado reaches a year-end deadline to reintroduce a gray wolf population in the state.

The proposed federal legislation would reinstate a 2020 U.S. Fish and Wildlife rule that delisted gray wolves as endangered species, a move later challenged in a lawsuit and overturned by a decision handed down by the U.S. District Court for Northern California in February 2022.

Following the court’s decision, President Joe Biden’s administration joined hunting groups in supporting an unsuccessful appeal of the court’s decision.

Read more at steamboatpilot.com.

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Colorado’s wilderness is home to a diverse ecosystem, where maintaining predator-prey balance is essential for the health of both wildlife and the surrounding environment. Mountain lions, also known as cougars or pumas, are apex predators vital to the ecological equilibrium of the state. When the population of these large carnivores grows unchecked, it can lead to imbalances, causing devastating consequences for other species, such as deer and elk.

These consequences, in turn, have negative impacts on the mountain lions themselves. Statistics from Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) indicate that mountain lion populations have been steadily increasing in Colorado over the past few decades. These populations have the potential to double every 5 to 10 years in the absence of human intervention.

As Colorado’s population continues to grow, human expansion into once-wild areas also increases the chances of human-mountain lion encounters. In many cases, mountain lions are drawn to human settlements because they perceive them as sources of easy prey. This poses a considerable risk to both humans and lions alike. CPW statistics show an alarming uptick in human-mountain lion conflicts over the last decade. In 2021, there were over 200 reported incidents, a significant increase from previous years. These conflicts resulted in livestock losses, injuries to pets, and even occasional threats to human safety.

In response, hunting with hounds serves as an effective method to mitigate these conflicts and maintain a healthy, stable lion population. Hounds are trained to track and locate mountain lions, allowing hunters to approach and assess the situation before deciding on next steps.

Selective harvest is a key element of hunting mountain lions with hounds. This practice distinguishes it from indiscriminate culling methods and underlines the conservation-oriented approach of hunting with hounds. Hunters can carefully assess the age, sex, breeding status, and overall health of the mountain lion before making the decision to harvest or release the cat. This approach also provides the opportunity to haze released mountain lions, discouraging them from frequenting populated areas.

Studies have shown undeniable data supporting the idea that catch-and-release hound hunting reduces human conflicts. Through the use of selective harvest, hound hunting provides a way to protect human and lion safety, all while maintaining a healthy overall ecosystem.

Hound hunting also provides invaluable data on the lion’s behavior, helping researchers and wildlife managers better understand their movements and behaviors in proximity to human activities. This information is essential for implementing appropriate conservation strategies, minimizing the risk to humans, and ensuring the well-being of mountain lions.

CPW’s harvest data demonstrates the conservation focus of mountain lion hunting. In Colorado, the annual harvest quota is determined based on a variety of factors, including population estimates, prior harvest data, and gender ratios. The goal is to maintain a stable, healthy population that does not exceed the carrying capacity of the environment.

It is also important to note that harvest numbers are dictated solely by the quotas for each unit rather than license sales. Mountain lion hunting licenses are unlimited but can only be used prior to quotas being met. With hound hunting, hunters can adhere to these quotas, in turn, contributing to the preservation of the lion population. This also means that each year over 80% of mountain lion licenses go unused but contribute to the state’s funding for wildlife management.

It’s important to note that hunting mountain lions is not an unrestrained free-for-all. Colorado, like other states, has established rigorous regulations and quotas to ensure that the practice is sustainable and ethical. Hunters must participate in mountain lion hunter education courses, obtain hunting licenses, and follow guidelines on when, where, and how hunting can take place. Hunters are also required to report all harvests within 48 hours as well as obtain an inspection seal by presenting harvested lions to parks and wildlife officers. This inspection involves ensuring that all legal requirements have been met and the collection of valuable data such as DNA, age, sex, and location of harvest. These regulations are carefully crafted to ensure ethical practices while managing our big cats.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife also enforces strict requirements and regulations concerning the consumption of mountain lion meat in Colorado. Regulations outline specific rules for utilizing all edible portions of mountain lion meat. This negates the idea that “trophy hunting” is the primary motivation for mountain lion hunting and ensures that the practice remains ethical and supports the broader conservation goals set by the state. Many lion hunters also note that mountain lion meat is among the best available of Colorado’s game species.

The controversial practice of hunting mountain lions in Colorado serves a critical role in the state’s ecosystem and society. It helps maintain the delicate balance of predator-prey relationships, mitigates human-wildlife conflicts, and offers a conservation-oriented, selective harvest approach that ensures the well-being of mountain lion populations. The stringent regulations regarding the use of mountain lion meat underscore Colorado’s commitment to ethical and sustainable hunting practices.

While the debate around hunting practices often sparks strong emotions, it is important to consider the broader context of wildlife management, conservation, and human safety. Hunting mountain lions, when conducted responsibly and in compliance with state regulations, represents a crucial tool in preserving the natural beauty and ecological health of Colorado. It is a practice rooted in tradition and executed with modern conservation values in mind.

Seth Brandstetter is a Colorado hunting guide and mountain lion hunter.

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According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in 2022 there were 10% fewer hunters across the country than there were when hunting peaked in the 1980s. At the same time, four Western states — Colorado, Montana, Idaho and Utah — saw more hunters than ever before.

A key driver of this trend is out-of-state hunters who have run out of luck in their home states: elk, deer and other big game species have declined precipitously in many parts of the nation.

“Opportunities to hunt elk are very limited where I live,” said Wisconsin resident Erik Rollefson. “My home state only has a few hundred elk and issues fewer than 10 elk hunting permits per year. I have a better chance to get a license in any Western state.”

Out West, big game hunting licenses are distributed in state-run lotteries. While most are reserved for local residents, some can be allotted to non-resident hunters. Hunter numbers are down 8% in New Mexico, but the state still reserves 16% of its licenses for non-residents.

Contrast that with Colorado, where as many as 35% of the licenses go to out-of-state hunters. Colorado also sells unlimited “over-the-counter” licenses that do not require a lottery entry to purchase. Policies like this have contributed to a whopping 26% more hunters in the state than there were in 2008.

It’s not surprising that many local hunters resent losing hunting opportunities to visitors. “Many residents depend on hunting for food,” said Rebecca Bradley, a bow hunter from Colorado. “I’d prefer that the state reserve licenses for locals that want them before setting any aside for non-residents.”

Consider Montana, where hunter numbers are up almost 4%. Big Sky Country sold slightly fewer hunting licenses to residents from 2008 to 2021, but non-residents bought 35% more licenses over that same period. With more out-of-state hunters pressuring game, some residents tell me they’d rather stay home.

“The non-resident (hunter) numbers have gone up like crazy,” said Joe Perry, a Montana rancher and founding member of the Montana Sportsmen Alliance. “That excludes residents.”

Though hunting tourism may discourage some locals from hunting, it’s a windfall for state wildlife agencies while subsidizing license prices for residents.

Except for Utah, which reserves just 10% of its tags for non-residents, Western states such as Colorado, Montana, Idaho, New Mexico, and Wyoming receive more than 60% of their license revenue from non-resident hunters.

That’s because non-residents pay so much more to hunt than residents do. The Wyoming Legislature recently passed a bill to increase certain kinds of non-resident elk licenses from $576 to $1,258, while a resident pays just $57.

Increasing costs for hunting licenses and what many say is crowding in the outback may finally reduce the ranks of out-of-state hunters. “It’s a big expense, and you don’t get to experience the wilderness if the mountains are overrun with hunters,” said Rollefson, the hunter from Wisconsin. “I’d rather go less often but have a higher-quality hunt, with fewer hunters and more animals.”

Joe Livingston, a public information officer for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, said the agency’s approach is that “the animals take priority,” although “crowding has become a factor.”

The agency is considering reducing the non-resident license allocation from 35% to 25%, a change expected to cost the state $1.4 million.

I live in Colorado, but I no longer hunt locally. I support allocating fewer hunting licenses for visitors so that locals don’t feel locked out. I believe resident hunters and a local hunting culture that’s invested in public land and its wildlife deserve to take priority over hunting tourism. Those of us who live in the state are the ones who pay taxes, vote and volunteer to clean up trails in the mountains.

If locals lose interest in hunting because wild places have become crowded, and animal populations drop because deer and elk are over-pressured, the next generation of hunters will be seasonal tourists rather than year-round stewards of their local area.

We need to preserve the wildness we’ve got left in Colorado along with the wild animals that depend on it. To do that, local hunters need to come first when it comes to issuing licenses to hunt.

Andrew Carpenter is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He lives in Colorado.

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Seminal novelists of the genre such as Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour had already idealized the American Frontier in hundreds of best-selling books and stories. But Williams, a University of Denver professor for 30 years, took a darker view of U.S. expansion, one that dissected the heroic myths of archetypal cowboys, ranch hands and outlaws.

Director Gabe Polsky, who fought for more than a decade to turn “Butcher’s Crossing” into a movie, said he “never really connected with the genre.”

“Never. I tried to watch (Westerns) a little bit and just kind of disconnected because it was about searching for the Indians and bank robberies and revenge and all of that.”

In 2022, Polsky’s cinematic version, which stars Nicholas Cage, debuted on the film festival circuit, and is now in theaters.

As a novel, the coming-of-age story was arguably the first Western to subvert the genre’s morally certain, decades-old formulas. Williams preceded giants of the revisionist and anti-Western such as Cormac McCarthy (“No Country for Old Men”) and Larry McMurtry (“Lonesome Dove”), although his influence is only lately appreciated by critics and readers.

Williams, who also wrote 1965’s literary masterpiece “Stoner,” invests in the emotional lives of his characters as “Butcher’s Crossing” depicts a thrilling, stomach-churning buffalo hunt. Harvard dropout — and naive Ralph Waldo Emerson devotee — William Andrews trades Boston for the Kansas frontier in an effort to expand his horizons. There he joins buffalo hunter Miller (just one name), whose epic, money-making quest involves finding and skinning a legendary herd of Colorado buffalo to secure his biggest payout yet.

Like the book, the film — which stars Fred Hechinger (“The White Lotus”) as Andrews, and a fearsome Cage as Miller — is set in the early 1870s when Colorado was still a territory riven by murderous land grabs and precious-metal rushes.

“They’re hunting buffalo, but they’re also going out on this crazy sort of ‘Moby Dick’ search,” Polsky said of the movie, which was shot in the Blackfoot Nation in Northwest Montana due to the size and availability of the tribe’s buffalo herd.

In addition to Moby Dick, reviews have likened it to “Apocalypse Now” as it traces Miller’s mental unraveling on the cursed trek to claim and offload more buffalo hides than anyone actually wanted. “It’s an American tragedy, almost like ‘Death of a Salesman’ in a way,” Polsky said.

The movie hit theaters on Oct. 20, less than a week after the release of the new Ken Burns documentary, “The American Buffalo.” They cover roughly the time period in U.S. history, when the American bison population plummeted from about 60 million in 1860 to fewer than 300 in the span of just 20 years, Polsky said. The movie doesn’t shy from the horror, eschewing special effects and showing real animal skinning on screen.

“It was shot on Blackfeet land near Glacier National Park, and we promised we’d show them the movie before it came out,” said Polsky, whose team made good on the promise. “To do it with them really made a lot of sense because of their history with the animal and how important the animal is to them. We did a lot of ceremony with them before we shot, and they gave us lessons on skinning. Everything was real.”

Blackfeet representatives “loved the movie and were profusely thankful and talked a lot about it,” added Polsky, who pointed out that there are no Indigenous people on screen. “They understood right away you don’t need Native Americans to have these clichéd scenes in there with them. It says everything you need to say with what the hunters did. The (Indigenous people) are lurking. They’re watching. These hunters are self-destructive. Nature will correct you.”

Like Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” a historically based feature about the racist savagery and murder of Indigenous people (in this case, 1920s Osage people whose land contained oil), it’s part of a re-examination of the evil wrought by ambitious men.

Despite its Montana shooting location, Polsky said the film remains rooted in Colorado.

“Montana had better (production) incentives, but the story is based here and I wrote it here,” he said. “I rented an apartment and mainly wrote the film at the Basalt Library. It was the first draft, so I took the book and started page by page trying to mold it into something cinematic. The novel has so much detail.”

Securing Cage to star afforded it Hollywood appeal. Polsky and his brother/business partner Alan first met Cage while producing 2009’s wild “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” which starred Cage as an amoral police officer with severe substance use disorders.

“I don’t know many A-list people on a first-name basis, but (Cage) was the first guy I thought of,” Polsky said. “He’s got that mysterious intensity, and believe me, on set he was even more intense. No one wanted to get near him. I don’t want to say he was a dark force, but he had electricity going through him at all times and everyone was just like ‘Ah! I don’t want to get shot.'”

Cage’s version of Method acting paid off in his performance, but he was also a consummate professional whose deep knowledge of the script and creative ideas during filming helped Polsky see it in a different way.

“He actually brought that buffalo coat he’s wearing on screen,” Polsky said. “He got it online. The glasses, the shaving-his-head thing — those were his ideas, too. He understands that the drive and ambition that created this country were also very destructive. It’s not a happy story all the time, and these real-life guys were individual forces of nature themselves.”

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The findings based on repeated testing, using multiple dating methods, place humans in North America thousands of years earlier than previously thought, a scientific paradigm shift.

“This is going to open a whole new avenue in the field of archaeology,” said USGS research geologist Kathleen Springer, co-lead author of a paper published in the journal Science.  “We were working in White Sands around one dried-up lake. Well, there’s hundreds of those around the United States.”

A colleague recently found a footprint in Utah near the Great Salt Lake, which has yet to be dated, Springer said. “Maybe more and more older sites will be found.”

The footprint confirmation is reverberating among archaeologists who study the timing of humans moving from Asia into North America. A dominant view has held that humans first arrived around 13,000 years ago, based on the dating of tools found in Clovis, N.M.

In September 2021, USGS and National Park Service researchers found the footprints at White Sands and announced, after initial radiocarbon testing of grass seeds, that they were 21,000 to 23,000 years old – implying humans lived in North America up to 10,000 years earlier than once thought and evolved for thousands of years alongside large Ice Age animals.

Their discovery was met with skepticism. Now they’ve buttressed their initial results through painstaking radiocarbon testing of fossilized pine pollen found in the footprints and through luminescence testing that measured the age of quartz crystals.

“Now we have evidence humans were here” between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago, well before the end of the Ice Age, Springer said. “This is a time stamp – footprints on the ground. The question is how they got here. People may have come down the West Coast.”

And how did they live? Ancient lakes that held water would have attracted humans and animals, said USGS research geologist Jeff Pigati, co-lead author of the study. At White Sands, thousands of footprints preserved in clay give a window into the lives of human ancestors and interactions with animals. Some prints came from adults walking with small children. Others came from humans surrounding a giant sloth before it fled.

Standard textbook science has held that glaciers receded and that “people came in and wiped out animals” by over-hunting, Pigati said. “But these results show that people and the mega-fauna co-existed for thousands of years before the Ice Age animals went extinct.”

Colorado Parks and Wildlife officers arrested Paul Stromberg, 52, on Saturday at a house near Howard on suspicion of killing the animals.

The bodies of the three black bears were dumped on state trust land southeast of Salida, the agency said in a news release. Officers found the bodies Friday after receiving anonymous tips about a poaching incident and reviewing social media posts.

Officers found evidence that the bears were shot Sept. 25 at the Howard property, the release says. Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesman Bill Vogrin declined to provide more information about the poaching incident, citing the ongoing investigation.

Stromberg was jailed in Fremont County before being released on a $10,000 bond.

He faces felony charges of destroying big game and misdemeanor charges of hunting without a license, illegal wildlife possession and unlawful waste of game meat.

His next court date is Oct. 11, online court records show.

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A coalition of wildlife advocates will pursue a ballot initiative to ban the hunting of mountain lions and the trapping of bobcats in Colorado. If the coalition can collect 124,238 signatures, they will place the question on the 2024 ballot.

Those pursuing the ballot initiative say there is no scientific reason to hunt mountain lions or bobcats and that methods used to do so are inhumane.

“This isn’t managing anything, this isn’t solving anything,” said Julie Marshall, national communications coordinator for Animal Wellness Action and the Center for Humane Economy. “This is about trophies and about fun. If you want to call it recreation, fine, but it’s clear it’s about trophies.”

The effort comes three years after a successful and controversial ballot initiative allowed Colorado voters to decide whether to reintroduce wolves in the state. Fifty-one percent of voters approved the reintroduction and state wildlife officials are tasked with releasing wolves back into Colorado by the end of the year.

The back-to-back ballot initiatives are prompting some to question who should make wildlife management decisions in the state — wildlife officials or voters?

“We consider Colorado Parks and Wildlife the folks who need to be making those decisions when it comes to wildlife management in the state of Colorado,” said Bryan Jones, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers’ coordinator for Colorado and Wyoming. “Science-based management should trump the legislature or the ballot initiative.”

Those who hunt mountain lions said regulated hunting of the species is necessary for wildlife management. Ethical hunters use hounds responsibly and use the meat of the harvested lion, they said.

Those leading the ballot initiative said they decided to take the decision to voters after trying other methods to change policy and failing. Colorado Parks and Wildlife commissioners in 2019 denied a request to ban bobcat trapping despite a petition with more than 200,000 signatures. In 2022, a bill to ban bobcat trapping and mountain lion hunting died in its first committee hearing, Marshall said.

“It feels like there is no recourse for what we feel like Coloradans wouldn’t want for their wildlife,” she said.

The initiative

It’s difficult to determine how many mountain lions live in Colorado because of their elusive nature and wide-ranging habits, but wildlife officials estimate their number at between 3,000 and 7,000.

Every year in Colorado, hunters kill hundreds of mountain lions and bobcats. Hunters killed an average of 500 mountain lions and 1,300 bobcats over the last three years, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

Permits to hunt mountain lions cost $50 for residents and $388 for non-residents. Bobcats can be trapped and hunted with a $33 furbearer license or a $10 permit in addition to a small game license. While a mountain lion tag allows for the killing of one animal, there is no limit to how many bobcats a hunter can kill.

Hunting a mountain lion generally involves finding recent tracks and releasing a pack of hounds to track the lion. Once the hounds force the lion into a tree, the hunter finds the dogs and shoots the treed lion.

It’s unethical to use dogs to chase a lion and shoot it while it hides in a tree, advocates supporting the ballot initiative said. They said dogs and the technology violate the principle of fair chase — a hunting ethic that mandates hunters not use methods or technologies that give them an unfair advantage over the animals they are seeking.

“Hunting elk or deer, you’re out walking around, there are no dogs and animals chasing your game around to get it cornered and up a tree,” said Brett Ochs, a supporter of the initiative and Niwot resident who has hunted deer, elk and pronghorn for 35 years. “That’s not fair chase.”

Other hunters disagree.

Using dogs in a mountain lion hunt is not so different from using dogs to hunt birds, Jones said.

Using hounds requires a high level of skill and traversing the mountainous terrain the mountain lions occupy during the winter hunting season is difficult, said Earl Oesterling, owner of Ivory and Antler Outfitters, which offers guided mountain lion hunts in northern Colorado. The outfitter recommends would-be mountain lion hunters be in tip-top shape to handle the extreme terrain and altitude.

“A lot of the time the lions outmaneuver the dogs or the dogs lose the track,” he said.

More broadly, supporters of the initiative said mountain lions and bobcats shouldn’t be hunted because they said there is no need for it to regulate the population or the populations of the animals they prey on.

“There’s no proof of need, so what are we doing this for?” Marshall said.

The initiative, if approved, would not stop ranchers or wildlife officials from killing cats that become threats to people, domestic animals or livestock.

Trophy hunting?

Proponents of the initiative have alleged that cougar hunting is “trophy hunting” pursued solely for a photo and a pelt or taxidermy. They compared it to hunting for lions in Africa.

But Oesterling and Jones said it’s difficult to define “trophy hunting.” Many hunters want to take photos with the animals they harvest and enjoy their time spent outside during the hunt, but that’s not inherently wrong, they said. It’s not any different than hunting elk or deer, Oesterling said.

State law also mandates that hunters prepare the meat of any killed lion for consumption.

“If someone throws that out they should be cited,” Oesterling said.

Oesterling has prepared and eaten mountain lion — he once made it into a queso dip — and said it was delicious. He preferred it over elk or deer.

It’s unfair for someone who doesn’t hunt to assume what a hunter’s motivation might be, Oesterling said. A lifelong hunter, the experience of spending weeks in the woods and learning about animals and habitats is a core part of his life. He respects the animals he hunts.

“For me, it’s spiritual,” he said.

Who should make the rules?

Leaving wildlife management and hunting decisions to voters — many of whom have no biology background or hunting experience — is contrary to how wildlife has been managed in the U.S. for more than a century, both Jones and Oesterling said.

“That’s the problem with the ballot initiatives as a whole – you take out biology and you put it in the hands of people who are acting with emotion,” Oesterling said.

But proponents of the initiative said sometimes the fate of the state’s wildlife should be left to the citizens of the state. Several of the people working on the mountain lion initiative also advocated to reintroduce wolves.

“I’m a believer in the citizens,” Ochs said. “That’s how democracy works – the majority win.”

Besides the wolf reintroduction, there are other precedents for voters changing wildlife management laws, they said.

In 1992, Coloradans voted 70% to 30% to ban the use of bait and the use of hounds while hunting black bears and eliminate the spring bear hunting season.

In 1996, Colorado voters by a margin of 4% approved a constitutional amendment that banned poisoning or snaring wildlife as well as certain types of traps.

The 2019 petition to ban bobcat trapping was denied by the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission after state biologists wrote there was not adequate science to support the ban. Despite an uptick in the number of bobcats hunted, Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologists said then that they believed the population was stable.

“When ethics in certain kinds of hunting cross the line and we have no other recourse, I think this is the right choice,” Marshall said of the ballot initiative.