The Gazette editorial board’s opinion is that Coloradans are too dull-witted to decide on a moral basis whether ruthless trophy hunting of mountain lions for their heads and fur-trapping of bobcats for their beautiful coats are recreational activities that align with our state’s values.

This was the board’s main message in an editorial that dismissed with chill and derision the Cats Aren’t Trophies initiative, which 188,000 voters statewide say they want to place on the November ballot.

Writing on behalf of the CATs campaign, I can tell you we know the voters are plenty smart and would want to forbid chasing native wildlife using packs of dogs for easy target shooting of unoffending animals contained out on a tree limb.

In fact, a prior generation of voters overwhelmingly approved outlawing bear hunting using bait such as doughnuts, and dogs, in spring when cubs are orphaned; the voters also banned inhumane and indiscriminate steel-jawed leghold traps. The CATs measure protects our native wild cats from cruel and unsporting practices cut from the same cloth.

And, yes, today’s generation is just as well suited as their immediate forebears to settle the moral question presented to them.

It’s sad that the Gazette’s editorial board never invited anyone from our broad-based campaign to address any concerns. With one conversation, we could have readily swatted away the worry that the measure undercuts professional wildlife management. The truth is, the CATs measure ensures that wildlife professionals at Colorado Parks and Wildlife or USDA Wildlife Services will most effectively remove any nuisance lion, for human safety, or protection of livestock and pets.

Ph.D.-level wildlife biologists and veterinarians who champion CATs, would have personally shown this board a half-century of our best peer-reviewed and published science, which informs Colorado that recreational fur trapping and hounding of unoffending animals does not manage conflict between humans and lions. Lions are territorial, protecting vast ranges and will not tolerate a crowd; there is simply no such thing as “too many lions” in any one region. The official term is “self-regulating,” meaning lion populations have a low ceiling based on habitat and prey availability.

They do not need trophy hunters to regulate their populations. They have it covered.

California ended trophy hunting 50 years ago, and their lion populations have never surged, and are officially today deemed stable statewide. If the board asserts trophy hunting of mountain lions is necessary, that is an uninformed opinion without teeth. Because our state statute carried out by CPW officially defines lion hunting as a “recreational opportunity.”

Trophy killing of unoffending lions at random is the equivalent of a crime control strategy grounded on shooting into a crowd. The science shows that trophy hunting (the hallmark being targeting large males) actually increases risk for human-wildlife conflict, by decreasing the average age of lion populations thus allowing more subadults less able to kill large elk to survive. The small ones are proven more likely to go after our pets and livestock.

What’s more, CPW research shows lions selectively kill deer infected with Chronic Wasting Disease, a brain-wasting disorder that is threatening the future of ethical hunting to feed our families.

And trophy hunting mountain lions with hounds and fur trapping bobcats is commercialized killing, selling off our native wildlife to out-of-state trophy hunters led around by a hunting guide, paid upwards of $8,000 for a guaranteed trophy. Bobcat pelts get sold on the Chinese and Russian fur markets.

It’s important to note that this practice invariably leads to the orphaning of kittens. Last hunting season nearly half the lions killed (47%) were female, who have kittens year-round. CPW biologists report that just because you see a lion, that does not mean there are no kittens in the den, and mothers will leave kittens behind for up to 12 days.

So please, Gazette, spare us the sanctimony of the citizens being too obtuse to spot cruelty to wildlife when they see it. Twenty-four of 28 nations in the Western hemisphere with mountain lions forbid hunting them. California has banned the practice a half-century and has the lowest rate of human-lion conflict in the West based on its vast human population.

Citizens have a constitutional right to make law directly. We are grateful to live in a state that allows us as citizens to exercise our democratic freedoms to make reasonable changes where necessary, when our Legislature or government agency fails to recognize Colorado values we cherish and uphold today.

Setting ethical standards is something that can and should unite us as proud Coloradans across the state.

Sam Miller lives in Grand Lake and is campaign director for the Cats Aren’t Trophies campaign, which just turned in 188,000 voter signatures to the Colorado secretary of state in order to qualify for its measure on the November ballot.