“Man has an infinite capacity to rationalize his cruelty” is the most apt statement for this election.

These wise words come from Cleveland Amory, grandfather of the modern animal welfare movement, and overlay a discussion of Proposition 127, which asks voters to protect our wild cats from trophy hunting, which is done in the most cruel and inhumane manner to collect heads, and fur trapping, equally unkind, to sell bobcats’ soft, spotted coats.

Human beings with a natural-born sense of right and wrong still intact, will vote “yes” on Prop 127, as a statement of our collective moral compass.

But nothing is sacred anymore, not even the truth, so it’s important to document facts rather than offer mere opinion.

I’ve spent 35 years as a professional journalist asking tough questions to unearth the honest truth about how and why anyone would kill innocent mountain lions and bobcats who never harmed them personally, or anyone, in any way.

Understanding “how” is easy.

A cheap license and easy online test grants the right to kill one innocent among 500 lions statewide yearly. State statute defines it as a “wildlife-related recreational opportunity.”

Nearly 100% of these lions are killed because dog packs run them into trees, where cats seek safety at home — until a bullet is shot into their body or brain. The rare lion that survives falls and is torn apart by dogs, as the shooter watches.

Same for bobcats, also lured into baited cages, choked, skinned and sold at Colorado auction to a foreign market, using their soft, spotted fur for luxury fashion.

Hounding and baiting are not ethical hunting, which is why Colorado voters in 1992 decided with a supermajority to stop both baiting and hounding of bears as unsightly practices.

The cruel, unfair advantage is baked right into the $8,000 guaranteed kill of a lion by outfitters today. Listen to this Colorado 2025 lion trophy hunt beginning in November:

“We start our days very early driving roads looking for mountain lion tracks. Once we have a track … we release hounds and catch your cat. Using GPS technology, we track the hounds and precisely locate where they treed your trophy. We then determine the easiest route to take you to your trophy. … Near 100% opportunity on mature cat.”

It’s hard to rationalize the cruelty of killing for a head and the thrill of it. Their sense of enjoyment from shooting an animal, proudly taking a picture with it, or hanging it up as wall décor is as deeply cruel as it gets.

In the summer of 2015, following public outcry over a beloved African lion named Cecil being killed mercilessly by a trophy hunter, Coloradans who like to kill large “game” animals on every continent started a game of their own, called hide the truth.

The trophy hunter public relations playbook metastasized to promote killing as sanitized management for “too many lions,” making more deer and protecting everyone from horrible beasts.

These are their myths without scientific basis in over 50 years of rigorous scientific testing. We know with confidence that trophy hunting increases risks. Read Dr. Mark Elbroch’s “The Cougar Conundrum” and you will understand.

Sadly Post columnist Krista Kafer and the Gazette’s Rachel Gabel have been convinced to not care about cruel and inhumane methods that undeniably orphan kittens when half of the lions hunters kill are females, breeding year-round, leaving kittens in the den up to 12 days to find them food but don’t return when dog packs intervene.

Hate is not hunting, and fearmongering belongs in the 1850s. Lion populations stabilize without trophy hunting, as lions have in California, for 52 years. A CPW biologist states deer decimation is “far-fetched.” A letter this week signed by 22 of our leading wildlife biologists, that includes Dr. Jane Goodall, reports trophy hunting is not managing anything, but increases our risk for conflict. Read that letter by clicking here.

As the late, great independent mountain lion scientist John Laundre said, “We manage for the sport.” And not for the wildlife.

It’s time for this travesty to end. Cruelty that remains unchallenged will grow in our permissive environment for the unjust killing of valuable wildlife that has proven a key to combatting Chronic Wasting Disease.

If you need more evidence look to Safari Club International which raffled off a Colorado lion to fight this measure. You should be incensed. This is disrespect of wildlife as a play toy, bought and sold to the highest bidder.

Arther Schopenhauer famously said, “Trophy hunting is of an entirely different breed than hunting out of sheer necessity. … The illusion that our treatment of (animals) has no moral significance, is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.”

Julie Marshall is a former opinion editor for the Boulder Daily Camera. She works as Public Relations Director for Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy, two of 100-plus organizations now endorsing Prop 127, Cats Aren’t Trophies.