Hunting, fishing licenses required (even if you don't hunt or fish) Colorado
Last edited Thu Jul 16, 2020, 12:47 PM - Edit history (1)
(It seems that the State Wildlife agencies are holding onto keeping funding of wildlife areas tied to hunting, even when it makes no sense. I wonder when this paradigm will change in the agency).
https://coloradosun.com/2020/06/25/hunting-fishing-licenses-colorado-state-wildlife-areas/
June 25 2020
The Colorado Wildlife Commission in late April approved new licensing rules for visitors to the 350-plus State Wildlife Areas and nearly 240 State Trust Lands.
“We are seeing a lot of unintended use of these properties and these lands were acquired for specific wildlife purposes using hunting and fishing dollars,” said Travis Duncan, a public information officer with Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
This story first appeared in The Outsider, the premium outdoor newsletter by Jason Blevins
So anyone 18 or older visiting the roughly 600 properties across Colorado will need to have a hunting and fishing license, beginning July 1. A fishing license costs $35 for residents and $97 for non-residents, and all licenses, except one-day fishing and hunting permits, require a $10 habitat stamp. The state parks pass is not valid for access to these properties.
“We want folks to hunt and fish on these properties,” Duncan said
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https://committeetoabolishsporthunting.wordpress.com/2020/07/07/answer-to-the-sun-article/
Answer to the “Sun” article, Jim Robertson
Jim Robertson is a wildlife photographer and self-taught naturalist who makes his home in a remote wilderness setting in the Pacific Northwest
Posted on July 7, 2020
This is my response to the article I posted earlier:..
Hunting, fishing licenses required (even if you don’t hunt or fish) for hundreds of Colorado wildlife areas
“We want folks to hunt and fish on these properties,” stated public information officer, Travis Duncan, in a recent Colorado Sun article entitled, “Hunting, fishing licenses required (even if you don’t hunt or fish) for hundreds of Colorado wildlife areas.” In other words, if you’re there simply to bird and/or wildlife watch or otherwise enjoy the sights and sounds of the living natural world and its inhabitants, you’re not welcome. Not without paying the same fee and being lumped in with those who came there to kill something (sportingly, of course).
Don’t get me wrong, visitors who might want spend a morning or afternoon at one of Colorado’s remaining natural areas and witness the natural splendor they have to offer are not opposed to paying a fee (within reason) to cover maintenance and upkeep of roads or facilities—we just don’t want to be counted as a “sportsmen” who are only there to get something they can take away from their visit.
Your article gave one example of a non-consumptive user—a river rafter–who did not think the new law was fair for all. Other examples run the gambit from the aforementioned bird watcher to the casual wildlife photographer to the just plain nature lover.
Sport hunters get enough glad-handing and back-slapping from each other whenever they make a kill. Better not to feed a swelling ego by claiming they are personally responsible for nature’s great abundance or they might take it to heart and become even harder for the rest of us to live with.
= new reply since forum marked as read
