Colorado voters next month can start mailing in their ballots or vote in person on Nov. 5 for Proposition 127, called Cats Aren’t Trophies, which asks citizens to provide humane and ethical treatment to native wild cats of our state.

Proposition 127 “is a statutory measure that proposes a ban on trophy hunting of mountain lions, bobcats or lynx,” reports Colorado Newsline.

The Wild Animal Sanctuary in Keenesburg, the Mountain Lion Foundation, and Animal Wellness Action are three key proponents of Prop 127, while the Safari Club International and the Colorado Trappers & Predator Hunters Association tell us it’s a bad idea.

I wanted to understand exactly what is at stake and help voters decide.

Basic facts include that trophy hunters shoot and kill on average 500 mountain lions a year, often by hiring guides with packs of dogs to drive a lion into a tree. Using GPS technology, the guide leads the trophy hunter to the lion, which is trapped in the tree, looking down on the baying dogs below. The coup de grace is tough to watch, with the lion shot with an arrow or hot lead and then tumbling out of the tree. The dogs then swarm and attack the lion, which may or may not be alive after the shot and the fall.

The bobcats are chased and die the same way but are also often by baited cage traps. That process ends not with shooting but strangulation or stomping, so as not to damage the spotted coat that will soon be off to China for making coats.

I went online, typed in “trophy hunt for Colorado mountain lions,” and readily found outfitters who are selling a guaranteed “trophy Tom(cat)” at $8,000.

But economically speaking, our Colorado Secretary of State’s office reports that by banning trophy hunting of big cats the state would lose roughly $410,000 in license sales, which accounts for just 0.4% of contributions to our state’s wildlife operations budget within Colorado Parks and Wildlife. It is a rounding error compared to the millions generated by the cash cows of deer and elk hunting.

The Safari Club insists that these big cats taste great. But it seems like alien behavior to eat cat. Still, I don’t believe that the primary reason people are hunting mountain lions and bobcats is to eat their meat; rather I would imagine the primary purpose of the exercise is to obtain a trophy for mounting and bragging rights.

Colorado State University researchers focused on discovering attitudes toward wildlife tell us that 88% of us oppose the hounding of mountain lions and 78% want no trophy hunting of mountain lions. That sounds about right since a generation ago, Colorado voters outlawed hounding, baiting and spring hunting of bears with a 70% supermajority.

Opponents also claim that Front Range residents don’t have to deal with lions, it’s just a rural people issue. But here they are sorely mistaken. Lions live up and down the Front Range, living in the midst of homes, trailheads, and family and hobby farms and ranches just as they always have. Only the small population of Colorado on the eastern plains does not get a chance to live with lions.

Because opposition to cruelty to animals is a universal value, it’s not surprising to see a broad range of 100 groups, including big cat rescue organizations, local humane societies, local businesses and wildlife conservation organizations backing Prop 127. Add to that bipartisan support, with both former Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo, and former Democrat U.S. Senator Mark Udall putting their stamp of approval on Proposition 127 to stop these unsporting practices.

I trust lifelong hunters like award-winning outdoors writer Ted Williams, who defends hunting, but not killing lions and bobcats for their heads and beautiful coats. He explains that “unlike traditional game, predators can’t compensate for mortality with fecundity. They self-regulate. They don’t require management, which in most of the West means killing. Bobcat trapping is regulated not by science but by fur prices.”

This is cruel and unsporting, says Williams, with lions “cornered by hounds executed at point-blank range, often after the sedentary hunter has been radioed in by the outfitter.”

And veteran mountain lion researcher Dr. Mark Elbroch of Panthera offers this: “Mountain lions don’t need to be killed. No problem is solved by killing them. And there are hardly any bobcat regulations in any state. No bag limits, no data on how many are out there.”

California’s experience seems instructive. There’s been no lion hunting there for 52 years. The state has a comparably sized lion population to Colorado’s, and it’s been stable for half a century. Predation on livestock is remarkably infrequent, and, as with Colorado, the state allows the taking of any cats who get into rare mischief.

In short, I am not taking the bait from the trophy-hunting crowd. I can support the ethical hunting of deer and elk and the responsible taking of wild prey animals, but not trophy hunters relying on packs of dogs to do the work for them. The use of the dogs and the GPS equipment makes this not a hunt, but an execution.

If people don’t want bears or lions or bobcats around, then perhaps a gated community is their kind of setting. But not the foothills and mountains of a state born to be wild.

Join me and vote “yes” on Proposition 127, Cats Aren’t Trophies.

Jim Martin an be reached at jimmartinesq@gmail.com.