Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Colorado Groups Resign From Outdoor Partnership

https://coloradosun.com/2023/02/17/hunter-groups-quit-colorado-outdoor-partnership/


Three hunting groups resigned from the Colorado Outdoor Partnership this week, citing “serious concerns” about the group’s direction and the ability of Colorado Parks and Wildlife to lead the collaboration.

“Concerns surrounding wildlife and habitat have been increasingly underrepresented, not responded to, and often ignored,” reads the resignation letter sent this week by leaders of the Colorado Outfitters Association, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and the Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management. “And our efforts to revitalize the conversations have not been taken seriously.”

The Colorado Outdoor Partnership was formed in in 2016 by CPW and then overhauled in 2020 by Gov. Jared Polis as a vehicle to “meet conservation and recreation challenges head-on through thoughtful planning, strategic investment and engagement with regional and state-level partnerships.”

The partnership includes more than 30 organizations representing outdoor recreation, conservation, hunters and anglers, environmental education, ranching and government. The group works to blend recreation and conservation in a sustainable way that supports economies and quality of life while protecting natural resources.


The resignation of hunting and angling groups from the partnership reveals a growing schism in Colorado’s wildlife community as recreation access takes a more prominent role in resource management discussions.

“If it’s not recreation, it’s DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion.) And if it’s not DEI, it’s wolves. And there is nothing else,” said Dan Gates, a founding member of the partnership and long-time volunteer in Colorado’s wildlife community representing the Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management and Colorado Trapper and Predator Hunters Association. “There’s no room for any conversations around wildlife and habitat management. Nothing can be done for wildlife and habitat because there are all these other distractions on this landscape. It’s so frustrating for the sportsmen community.”

The letter, sent by Gates, Jenny Burbey with the Colorado Outfitters Association, Luke Wiedel from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, explained that volunteers “are no longer comfortable serving” after the Colorado Department of Natural Resources last year investigated allegations that Gates displayed racist behavior. The investigation yielded no evidence supporting the claims.

“Our efforts to get information and support from DNR continue to remain unanswered after several requests for transparency,” reads the letter.

Luke Wiedel has served several years as a statewide volunteer for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, representing hunters in various matters with CPW. He feels his group’s involvement in the Colorado Outdoor Partnership was to “check off a bunch of boxes … so they can say we had wildlife groups approve our statewide recreational plan.”

“If we are really going to have meaningful and impactful conversations and action revolving around recreation and conservation we need to take a step back and ask ourselves some serious philosophical questions about wildlife and habitat and capacity and impacts,” Wiedel said. “We need to all come to the realization that we all have an impact — hunters and all recreational users — and then we need to decide what we are going to do about that impact.”

Hunters are the only ones who put their money where their mouth is. We pay for everything thru hunting licenses & then we go to all the banquets of DU, RMEF, NWTF, SCI, Wild Sheep Foundation plus a bunch of others-----putting more money in wildlife projects.

The day is coming when it will stop.

Ever since the CO Division of Wildlife merged with the Parks, its management has gone downhill, fast. Hunting is a cash cow in Colorado, parks is a laughable joke. They are now charging you a park fee when you get your vehicle license plate under the advertising guise of including a search and rescue fee - a legitimate ploy for people that think their safety is someone else's responsiblity - and there are a lot of those in CO. That same SAR fee we pay on every hunting and fishing license and ATV and boat and dirt bike registration. Money, money, money. I have a business and know money makes it run but you still have to maintain your service offering...in this case fair hunting and fishing. The hunting in CO has gone downhill, like off a cliff, from my first hunt in 1996. And some of you know even better hunting from the 70's and 80's. And I'm not talking how many animals I see, just the quality of the hunt, less hunters, more pristine environment, naturally ranging elk.

I belonged to RMEF and thought they were just as poorly managed. It was nothing but talk about how they bought 400 acres and now the elk are happy now. Whatever. Did nothing to change the quality of hunting in Colorado. If they were into unlocking land-locked public land, or forcing land owners to unlock gates on roads that access public lands, or free state trust lands for hunting, I'd be open to their elk management ideas. Seems they were all about the elk, not the hunters. They also forgot the hunters pay the bills, licenses, armmo/guns, sporting goods, Pitman Robertson act (another cash cow), lodging, food, taxidermy...and dare I not forget the membership fees to the RMEF.

Despite my un-appeal for RMEF, I hope their divorce with Parks and Wildlife adds a wake up call to the .gov. It's got about a 1% chance of actually making a difference, but I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope that at least a few people are saying, "Huh, maybe we should actually care about the hunters."

I do not expect resident hunters to give up their heritage and right to hunt their own state due to wokeness, and they shouldn’t. With out of state fees being what they are and based on what is presented, many may just stay away due to cost and wokeness by the Colorado state and local legislators. I guess we’ll see. Eastern Colorado and it’s Aspen enclaves is governing like California. The only thing these legislators understand is drastic revenue reduction, maybe that’s the answer from the hunting and fishing community at large.

It all starts with liberal Polis, his anti-hunting husband, and all the CPW commissioners he appoints that have no direct ties to hunting nor experience.Then there is the full democratic, liberal,majority legislature, with only 17-18 Republicans and few of them are RINO's,that give him anything he wants.

All of them could careless that Colorado Outdoor Partnership, have the top organizations such as Colorado Outfitters Association, RMEF,etc, pull out.

They are hell bent on making Colorado the 2nd California

I quit them many years ago. I sent them a letter of concern about New Mexico issues (I lived there at the time) and they did not even respond to me. It showed me how interested they are in the average guy. They have turned into another bs organization, that is just after money to buy a few plots here and there and make themselves look good to big-money people. They refuse to get politically involved-which, unfortunately, is a necessity these days. Never again will they get my money.

New Mexico Wildlife Federation, NMBHA and most of the big ant hunting “conservation” groups introduced a bill last year that would have set up NM similar to CPW, luckily it died. There is another bill this year to transfer NMDGF to Energy, minerals and natural resources. NMWF is not as vocal this year after having their ass handed to them last year, but they are behind the bill.

One side of my family got to what would eventually become CO in the 1850s. The other side is Arapaho so they have been there for many centuries. I was born in CO in 1963 and it was a great place to grow up. But the CO of my misbegotten youth is extinct and it is never coming back. The state was invaded by hundreds of thousands of displaced LIB idiots from places like CA and it is irreparably changed for the worse. Fools from CA can't help themselves, they flee CA and then turn the place they move to into CA.

This is exactly what has happened with the DOW. When it was a stand alone agency it was financially solvent and made decisions based on game management with considerations of ranching, recreation, etc... being considered after the game management was handled. As soon as they combined the DOW with Parks it went to hell. Parks was going bankrupt (despite the fact the lottery was supposed to pay for the parks) and they plundered the DOW to prop up the parks and since they were now a combined entity the people assigned to manage the new system came heavily from Parks and were not concerned with game management. Since the LIBs have seized control of the politics in the state they now get to appoint whoever they want and they have an intense dislike of hunters and to a lesser extent fishermen. Mind you they still want the hunters and fishermen to be the cash cow, they just don't want them to have any say in the matter. This is how CA runs things too.

When I retired from 25 years in the USN I tried to return to my native CO. Could not stomach what it turned into so I followed Davy Crockett's advice and headed to TX.

100% spot on

MAC is exactly right "But the CO of my misbegotten youth is extinct and it is never coming back."
Breaks my heart...
CPW is in the business of making money and there will always be someone willing to pay since this is their "norm" for CO. For the older guys...CPW doesnt care how it used to be.

I'm 68. I love the western slope----I'm not going anyway. My elk & deer hunting days are behind me. I still get out but it's for turkeys in spring & grouse in the fall. IMO--there is no better place in the lower 48 than the Western Slope of Colorado.

I grew up ⬆️ n sw Colorado. I grieve for it.
So goeth the world.

Hmm MMB.

Was impressed by CDW when I hunted there in the 80s and 90s,
compared to PGC.

Guess they have both went downhill since.

More like they fell off a cliff.

I was born in Denver in 1946, and I was a 5th generation Coloradoan. My Great Great Grandfather came to Colorado in the 1850, homesteaded where the town of Bennett is and was named after him, and he was the 1st Colorado Territorial Representive to Congress in 1861 and 1865.

I have deep ties to Colorado, but it has been Californicated and is a far cry from what it was when I grew up there. I still have relations in the Denver area that I visit, but if they were not there, I would have no use for Colorado. Sad.