Colorado CPW Meeting Puts Furbearer Rules and Fur Sales in the Spotlight

Colorado hunters and trappers have a real fight on the calendar this week. The Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission is meeting July 16 and 17 in Ignacio, with furbearer and small-game regulations, wolf updates, and a petition to ban the commercial sale of wildlife fur all on the table.

That fur-sale ban is not some harmless paperwork item. It goes straight at the value chain that helps keep trapping and legal furbearer harvest alive. When you make lawful fur harder or impossible to sell, you are not saving wildlife. You are kneecapping one of the oldest management tools on the landscape and pushing more pressure onto agency budgets and landowners.

The Commission is also set for final consideration of Chapter W-3 furbearer regulations, including new daily bag limits on small game and furbearers. Add wolf reintroduction funding and livestock compensation updates to the same agenda, and this is exactly the kind of meeting sportsmen cannot ignore.

Colorado has become a testing ground for activist wildlife politics. If hunters, trappers, ranchers, and conservation-minded residents stay quiet, the record gets filled by people who think emotion is a substitute for biology.

Legal harvest, trapping, predator management, and furbearer regulations should be built on science, population data, landowner reality, and fair chase law. Show up, comment, and make sure CPW hears from the people who actually pay for and practice wildlife management.