Coloradans rejected a proposed ban on mountain lion and bobcat hunting — a hit for wildlife advocates who have worked to outlaw or change the practice for years.

Of more than 2.4 million votes tallied by Wednesday morning, 55% were in opposition to Proposition 127 and 45% were in support. The Associated Press declared that the proposition had failed.

Only six of Colorado’s 64 counties showed a majority of voters in support of banning wild cat hunting: Denver, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, San Juan and San Miguel counties.

Proposition 127 would have banned the regulated hunting of mountain lions and bobcats, though Colorado Parks and Wildlife and regular citizens still would have been able to legally kill animals that became a threat, in certain situations. The state’s wildlife agency has regulated cat hunting since 1965.

Those who supported the cat hunting ban said the methods to hunt mountain lions and bobcats were unethical and that hunting was unnecessary to regulate cat populations. They also asserted that mountain lion hunters were primarily seeking a trophy head or pelt and were not hunting the animal for the meat. Therefore, the hunting of the species should be considered trophy hunting and banned, proponents have argued.

Leaders of Cats Aren’t Trophies — the primary organization behind Proposition 127 — in a statement Wednesday urged Colorado Parks and Wildlife to end the use of dogs in mountain lion hunting and the use of baited traps on bobcats. They framed the loss as voters rejecting the use of the ballot box to decide wildlife management policy.

“The agency operates at its peril by stonewalling on obvious reforms to protect wild cats,” Cats Aren’t Trophies campaign director Sam Miller said. “The vote was anything but a mandate on baiting, trapping and hounding — it was a vote of deference to the agency to take action itself.”