Colorado's Amendment 83: The Battle Over a "Right to Hunt and Fish" Is About Far More Than the Ballot
Come November 3, Colorado voters will face one of the most consequential — and most deceptively framed — wildlife questions the state has seen in decades. Amendment 83 asks voters to make hunting and fishing a constitutional right. On its surface, it sounds like a no-brainer for sportsmen: who wouldn't want to protect traditions that have defined the American West for generations? But dig past the promotional language and what emerges is a proposal with sweeping, largely undefined implications for wildlife management, public lands access, local government authority, and the very democratic processes that Coloradans have used to shape their outdoors for the past 30 years.
This is not a simple fight between hunters and animal rights activists. It is a struggle over who gets to make decisions about Colorado's wildlife — and whether those decisions will be made by citizens, elected officials, and wildlife scientists, or ultimately settled by lawyers in courtrooms.
Where Amendment 83 Came From — and Who Is Pushing It
The amendment was introduced by the organization the International Order of T. Roosevelt (IOTR). "It's an organization that's been around since 1975," said IOTR CEO Luke Hilgemann. The group gathered signatures aggressively throughout 2026, and the effort paid off. A hunting and fishing conservation group celebrated a big victory after gathering enough signatures to add the new amendment onto the upcoming November 3 ballot. On September 4, the "Right to Hunt and Fish Amendment" surpassed the 124,238 signatures required to be added onto the ballot.
But this campaign did not spring entirely from Colorado soil. Hilgemann said IOTR was already working to establish constitutional hunting and fishing protections in 15 other states when a private citizen began the process of getting Amendment 83 on Colorado's ballot. The organization was then brought in to help develop the amendment's language. Critics have been quick to point that out. This amendment is part of a national campaign backed by wealthy, out-of-state groups that have pushed nearly identical measures in states across the country. A "right to hunt and fish" isn't an idea unique to Colorado. Similar constitutional amendments have been promoted around the country by national organizations.
The pitch has a genuine constituency. Amendment 83 would amend the Colorado constitution to make hunting and fishing a right for Colorado's 874,000 fishing license holders and 378,000 hunting license holders. These are real people with real skin in the game, not a fringe bloc. And their concern about future ballot threats is not invented — it has a recent, documented history in Colorado politics.
The Ballot Box Biology Problem: A Recent History
The phrase "ballot box biology" gets thrown around a lot in discussions about Amendment 83, and it cuts both ways. You will be hearing the term "ballot box biology" in the debate about Amendment 83. Supporters say decisions on wildlife are not best decided with a vote. The other side says if not there, it will end up in court.
Hunting advocates have a legitimate grievance here. Coloradans voted on a ballot measure in 2024 to ban the hunting and trapping of big cats. It failed by a decisive 11 percentage points. That measure — Proposition 127 — would have made bobcat and mountain lion hunting illegal statewide, and it was driven by advocacy groups rather than wildlife scientists at Colorado Parks and Wildlife. At the time, hunting advocates said that measure would not have made it to the ballot if Colorado's state constitution protected hunting rights. In 2026, they're trying to accomplish that goal, with an amendment giving similar rights to hunters as those guaranteed in the constitutions of most neighboring states.
That context matters. Colorado hunters watched a well-funded anti-hunting campaign nearly succeed in eliminating big cat hunting in 2024. Amendment 83 is, in part, a direct response to that near miss. Leinweber points to multiple ballot issues in recent years she says were pushed by interest groups and not state wildlife scientists. She believes Amendment 83 is good for the outdoor sporting community and Colorado's economy. "We just feel like this is protecting what has actually been at risk in recent years," Leinweber said.
For elk hunters like Christopher Olney, it is deeply personal. "Amendment 83 is really important to hunters based on the fact that for generations we've been the original conservationists. We've been there fighting for what's right for the wildlife, fighting for the free lands and the wild places," said Olney, a Colorado native who has been part of hunting and fishing his whole life. It is the kind of statement that resonates in elk camps from the San Juans to the Wyoming border — and it reflects a genuine conservation ethic that has defined hunting culture since Theodore Roosevelt himself was walking the land.
What the Amendment Actually Says — and What It Deliberately Does Not
Here is where the trouble starts. The text of Amendment 83 is brief to the point of being evasive. Amendment 83 would write into the state Constitution a right to hunt, fish and harvest wildlife using "traditional methods," a term left undefined in the proposed language, while declaring hunting and fishing the "primary and preferred means of managing and controlling" fish and wildlife populations.
The phrase "traditional methods" is doing an enormous amount of work in that sentence — and it is entirely undefined. The Right to Hunt constitutional amendment explicitly protects "traditional methods" of hunting. The ballot language is careful not to define what "traditional methods" means. Proponents of this measure know that if they honestly defined those "traditional methods" in the ballot, then the Right to Hunt measure would stand no chance of passing.
That is not an accusation without evidence. Coloradans, to their eternal credit, have banned many of the cruel and unethical "traditional methods" that would be protected in our state constitution if the Right to Hunt measure passes. Those banned practices include steel-jawed leghold traps, wildlife killing contests, certain forms of bear baiting, and the spring bear hunt. This amendment would lead to the repeal of common-sense restrictions on unethical and cruel hunting, fishing and trapping practices, such as the use of steel-jawed leghold traps, wildlife killing contests, bear baiting and the spring bear hunt, which would leave newborn cubs without their parents and they'd starve to death.
Colorado voters banned many of these practices specifically because they ran contrary to the ethics of modern, fair-chase hunting. That amendment, passed by voters in 1996, prohibited certain types of trapping, like leghold traps, poisons and snares. These weren't bans imposed from outside the sporting community — they reflected a growing consensus that some practices cross a line that most hunters themselves find indefensible.
The Constitutional Loophole Critics Fear Most
The legal implications of Amendment 83 extend well beyond arguments about trapping hardware or spring season dates. What opponents fear is that embedding vague language in the state's constitution would shift the entire architecture of wildlife regulation in Colorado — permanently.
Project Coyote warns the measure is being sold to voters as simply preserving hunting and fishing as they exist today, but in practice it permanently rewrites the balance of power between voters, the legislature, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission, local governments, and the courts, moving wildlife decisions out of the democratic process and into costly litigation over what the amendment's vague terms mean.
The amendment would give hunting and fishing a constitutionally preferred status in wildlife management, potentially changing the balance between voters, the legislature, the Parks and Wildlife Commission, local governments, and the courts. Future wildlife regulations would have to meet the amendment's constitutional standards on what regulation is legally "necessary," likely leading to costly legal battles.
The trap ban from 1996 is the clearest example of how this could play out. By enshrining vague "traditional methods" language in the constitution, Initiative 302 could give practices like trapping, which were already restricted by Colorado voters in 1996, new legal leverage to challenge that ban in court. In other words, a constitutional amendment passed in 2026 could be used in court to undo a ballot measure that Coloradans approved 30 years earlier — without voters ever having a say in that reversal.
It would create a new constitutional framework that would make future voter-enacted protections for animals nearly impossible to uphold. It would prevent city councils, county commissions, state legislators and commissions/committees from passing laws to protect animals. That is not a hypothetical slippery slope — it is the structural consequence of embedding a broadly written rights provision into a state constitution.
The "Traditional Methods" Question: What Would Actually Come Back?
Steel-Jawed Leghold Traps
The leghold trap debate has a long and brutal history in Colorado. "Traditional methods" could raise questions about whether cruel and outdated practices Colorado voters have already banned, such as wildlife trapping, hounding, or baiting, receive constitutional protection. For any man who has spent time in the backcountry, the prospect of an unattended leghold trap on public land is not abstract — it's a real hazard to dogs, to non-target animals, and to the ethical reputation of hunting broadly. Colorado voters ended the use of these devices for a reason, and there is no meaningful constituency among fair-chase hunters to bring them back.
Spring Bear Hunting and Bear Baiting
The spring bear hunt is another flashpoint. Critics note that a spring season — when sows are nursing cubs — creates outcomes that the vast majority of ethical hunters find unconscionable: orphaned cubs unable to survive on their own. Bear baiting, meanwhile, reduces hunting to something far removed from fair chase. These are not concerns invented by anti-hunting groups. They are objections that originated within the hunting community itself, which is precisely why Colorado voters have acted on them.
Wildlife Killing Contests
Competitive killing contests — where participants compete for prizes based on the number of animals, often coyotes, killed — represent perhaps the hardest case to defend within any coherent hunting ethics framework. They have been banned in a growing number of states precisely because they bear no relationship to conservation, fair chase, or the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. The possibility that Amendment 83's "traditional methods" language could be used to protect these contests from future regulation is one that even some pro-hunting voices find difficult to justify.
The Supporters' Counterargument: Scaremongering vs. Substance
Supporters of Amendment 83 are not without arguments. IOTR's Hilgemann has directly addressed the fears about banned practices making a comeback. "We believe this is not going to bring back trapping, and explicitly say that Colorado Parks and Wildlife will maintain the ability to set season structures to determine what types of animals can be hunted and the bag limits." He has gone further: "That's not going to happen as a result of our amendment," Hilgemann said. "It doesn't go backwards. It doesn't bring those things back."
Colorado's official ballot analysis says the amendment would not immediately change existing hunting and fishing regulations. However, it could affect future laws and regulations, depending on how courts interpret the new constitutional right. That hedge — "depending on how courts interpret" — is precisely what critics seize on. Courts, not voters, would determine what "traditional methods" means in practice. And courts do not always interpret constitutional language the way its drafters intended.
A yes vote guarantees hunting and fishing rights in the state constitution, making efforts to limit certain practices much more difficult. It would make hunting and fishing the state's preferred means of managing wildlife, which is fundamentally already the state's current position. Supporters argue that this merely codifies the status quo and protects it from future ideological campaigns at the ballot box.
It is worth acknowledging the legitimate frustration behind that argument. Colorado voters have repeatedly and consistently made their preferences clear on wildlife issues. Those preferences are in favor of modern, ecologically focused and science-based practices. But that cuts both ways — if voters have already settled these questions through the democratic process, what exactly is Amendment 83 protecting hunting from?
The National Pattern: Colorado Is Not an Isolated Case
If approved, Colorado would join 24 other states that have already established constitutional protections for hunting and fishing. That is a significant number, and supporters point to it as evidence that the idea is neither radical nor extreme. Most neighboring states — Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Montana — already have these provisions, and their wildlife management systems have not collapsed into litigation chaos.
But the presence of similar amendments elsewhere does not resolve the specific concerns raised about Colorado's version. Project Coyote argued, "Our Constitution is a statement of shared values, not a hiding place for cruelty. Hardwiring a 'Right to Hunt' into our Constitution alongside more fundamental rights like freedom of speech and trial by jury would privilege one form of outdoor recreation over all others." The concern is not about the idea of protecting hunting in principle — it is about the specific, undefined language of this particular measure and the legal jeopardy it creates for regulations that voters have already put in place.
Hardwiring a "Right to Hunt" into the Constitution alongside more fundamental rights like freedom of speech and trial by jury would privilege one form of outdoor recreation over all others. More importantly, it would prioritize lethal control of wildlife over nonlethal tools like relocation, habitat protection, and vaccination against disease. That is a conservation argument, not an anti-hunting one, and it deserves to be taken seriously by anyone who cares about the long-term health of Colorado's wildlife and its public lands.
Public Lands, Shared Stakes, and the Broader Picture
Colorado's public lands are not the exclusive domain of any single user group, and Amendment 83 lands in a state where that tension is always present. The amendment would affect all Coloradans, because public lands are shared by many users. Federal Bureau of Land Management lands alone draw 10 million visitors each year for hiking, biking, rafting, camping and other activities. Hiking alone is estimated to generate more than $71 million in income.
Hunters are part of that ecosystem, and a vital one. License fees and excise taxes on sporting equipment fund the overwhelming majority of wildlife conservation in America through the Pittman-Robertson Act — a fact that is frequently lost in these debates. But constitutional preference for one form of land use over all others in a state that draws millions of non-hunting visitors raises real questions about equitable management of shared resources.
Hunting and fishing would receive specific constitutional protection over all other public lands users even though hunting and fishing are already legal and regulated in Colorado. The existing legal framework already protects the right to hunt. The amendment's proponents have not made a persuasive case that this additional layer of constitutional protection is necessary to preserve the activity — as opposed to protecting specific practices that voters have previously chosen to prohibit.
The Supermajority Threshold and What It Means
Unlike a standard ballot measure, the amendment will need approval from 55% of voters — a constitutional supermajority — to pass. That is a high bar, and it reflects how seriously Colorado takes amendments to its foundational legal document. The threshold exists precisely because constitutional changes are difficult to undo — once language is embedded in the state constitution, reversing it requires another supermajority campaign, another signature drive, another costly election cycle.
That permanence is what makes the vagueness of "traditional methods" so consequential. If the amendment passes with undefined terms intact, any future attempt to clarify or constrain those terms through legislation will face immediate constitutional challenge. If approved, it would push decisions out of the hands of Colorado voters and into the courtrooms. For men who value the democratic tradition of citizen-driven wildlife management — which has given America the most successful wildlife conservation model in the world — that is not a trivial concern.
What Ethical Hunters Should Be Asking
The debate around Amendment 83 is often framed as hunters versus anti-hunters, traditionalists versus progressives. That framing does a disservice to the genuine complexity of the issue and to the many hunters who have serious reservations about what this amendment actually does.
Ethical hunting has always rested on a foundation of fair chase, respect for wildlife, and compliance with democratically established rules. The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation — the framework that turned catastrophically depleted populations of deer, elk, waterfowl, and wild turkey into the abundant wildlife resources Americans enjoy today — is built on public trust, science-based management, and the rule of law. It is not built on constitutional provisions that hand veto power over wildlife regulations to whichever party can afford to litigate most aggressively.
Amendment 83 is billed as a "constitutional right to hunt and fish." Hunting and fishing are already legal in Colorado, so this amendment wouldn't protect them — it would change the rules for everyone. If the practices that Amendment 83 might protect — leghold traps, baiting, spring bear seasons, killing contests — are practices that most ethical hunters have already disavowed, then the question worth asking is: who, exactly, does this amendment serve?
Colorado's First Gentleman Marlon Reis weighed in directly: "For the past eight years, our Administration has worked to make Colorado a kinder place for animals, banning wildlife killing contests and puppy mills, standing up a new Division of Animal Welfare, and building wildlife crossings to reconnect the habitat we've fragmented." Whether one agrees with every wildlife policy choice of the current administration or not, the direction of travel — toward science-based, humane, broadly supported wildlife management — is one that the majority of Coloradans, including many hunters, have consistently endorsed at the ballot box.
The Bottom Line: A High-Stakes Constitutional Gamble
Amendment 83 is coming to Colorado voters in November 2026 wrapped in the language of heritage, conservation, and common sense. Some of that framing is sincere. The frustration that drove it — watching ballot campaigns funded by national advocacy groups nearly eliminate mountain lion hunting in 2024 — is real, and the impulse to protect hunting from future ideological campaigns is understandable.
But the cure on offer may be worse than the disease. Amendment 83 misleads Colorado voters into thinking they are protecting the right to hunt and fish when it actually takes away their voice in future wildlife decisions. The undefined "traditional methods" language, the constitutional elevation of hunting and fishing above all other forms of wildlife management, the potential to revive practices that Coloradans banned decades ago, and the near-certain prospect of years of expensive litigation — none of that makes Colorado's wildlife system stronger. It makes it more fragile, more contested, and more expensive to administer.
Any man who spends time afield — who has invested in licenses, gear, public land access, and the conservation infrastructure that makes it all possible — has reason to look hard at what Amendment 83 actually does before deciding whether it deserves his vote. The traditions worth protecting are not the ones at risk from this amendment. The traditions at risk are the democratic ones: the right of Coloradans to decide, through an open and accountable process, what kind of hunting they want to represent their state to the world.
