'Care' about hunting ethics

I’m a 64-year-old wildlife advocate who has lived on Deer Mesa just outside of Norwood, for the past 36 years. I moved to Colorado from Texas 38 years ago and have longed to see the end of needless suffering of innocent wildlife ever since.

I worked at the Rocky Mountain Wildlife Ark and Rehabilitation Center on Wilson Mesa in 2004-05 and was caregiver to two mountain lions, two Canada lynxes and a bobcat as well as a host of predators and raptors.

As a rural resident, it makes good sense to vote YES to protect mountain lions and bobcats from needless suffering done by trophy hunting and to stop trapping our bobcats just to make fur coats. I am not alone, and other rural Coloradans are on board with this one.

There is not one acceptable reason or justifiable excuse for killing any lion or bobcat that is in nature, in their home, and not causing any trouble to us or to our animals. 

We need to stop killing them for trophies and skinning them to make fur coats in China.

 This kind of activity is not even close to resembling deer hunting. We don’t chase deer with dogs wearing tracking collars, just so some head-hunter paying an outfitter $8,000 can walk up and shoot an animal stuck in a tree.

This issue is most closely related to what the citizens did to protect bears from baiting and hounding years ago. It makes sense to have some measure of ethical standards, and trophy hunting crosses that line.

California stopped this nonsense 50 years ago, and their lion populations are stable, deer thrive and a mere 15 lions were killed for livestock predation last year, according to state data. Compared to Colorado, and most states that allow trophy hunting, that is extremely low.

– Ruthie McCain, Norwood