The boys and girls at Safari Club International and the Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation have once again hurled a suit at the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission. This time around, the organizations allege that the agency’s July adoption of a two-animal daily bag limit on 17 furbearer species violated Colorado’s Administrative Procedure Act.
The announcement of the filing was dropped earlier this month, in which they argue that the Commission abandoned the two options it had publicly noticed — a staff-recommended daily limit of 15, or a tiered approach of four or eight depending on the species — and instead adopted a far stricter rule after public comment had closed. The plaintiffs are asking the court to declare the rule invalid, vacate the two-animal limit, and order the Commission to reconsider the issue with proper notice and an opportunity for the public to comment on whatever proposal just so happens to be under consideration.
For decades Colorado was without any daily bag limits on its furbearers. The requirements were deceptively simple for hunters and trappers as they only needed to buy a $10 furbearer permit (on top of a small-game license), and then were free to take as many as they wanted in a day. CPW staff repeatedly told the Commission there was no biological need for limits and staff described the existing harvest as “conservative, sustainable, and consistent with scientific literature.”
Despite this, the Commission pushed and directed staff to develop bag-limit options. On May 29th it issued public notice for two alternatives which included the staff-recommended daily limit of 15 animals per species, or a tiered approach that would set a limit of four or eight depending on the species.
At the Commission’s July 16th meeting, members heard more than an hour of public comment strictly limited to just those two alternatives. After comment closed, Commissioner Rebecca Niemiec, a Colorado State University professor and co-director of the university’s Animal-Human Policy Center (yes, it’s real), moved for a daily limit of two animals per species. She cited a survey her center had posted the day before that was made up of the opinions of 534 Coloradans. Those residents were recruited through an online panel and the survey found that 69 percent considered a daily limit of zero to two most reasonable, and that trust in the agency would rise more with a one-animal limit than with an eight-animal one.
Niemiec told fellow commissioners the goal was to “maintain social acceptance, to make sure people feel better about hunting and trapping furbearers and about our policy decisions.” She has since written on Substack that the choice was fundamentally about values and compromise between consumptive and nonconsumptive interests, not biology.
Dr Becky Niemiec | Substack
“From her admission, it sounds like she rushed the survey to get it out the day before the vote and, in doing so, put out a less-than-stellar product,” said Michael Jean, Litigation Counsel at Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation. “There was no need for the limit at all. The population was always healthy, and things were fine in the state.”
Other commissioners raised concerns that the motion was “veering off the notice” and that the public should receive additional time and another opportunity to comment. The Commission silenced any opposition, which included an August formal warning letter from SCI and SAF, and proceeded anyway. The two-animal limit soon passed 6-5 and took effect on September 1st.
The pair of sportsmen’s groups are now asking a Denver court to throw the limit out and force a proper do-over, which would include notice, comment, and a final decision that actually matches what the public was told was under consideration —something Colorado’s Administrative Procedure Act distinctly requires. Unfortunately, agencies do not get to treat public comment as a formality and then adopt a different rule once the microphones are off.
The organizations are careful to say the case is about process, not the precise number of two animals per species. SCI CEO W. Laird Hamberlin said participants “deserve better” and that last-minute departures from noticed proposals undermine confidence in the process. SAF litigation counsel Michael Jean also noted the commissioner’s own admission that the sample was smaller than hoped, not peer-reviewed, and completed under time pressure.
This is the second time the two groups have sued the current Commission since 2024, with the earlier case being settled. Things are still in the early stages with this one and it remains to be seen as to whether a court will require the Commission to renotice the actual proposal.
What is abundantly clear is that “social acceptance” is now being treated as a sufficient reason to bypass the traditional pathways of rulemaking when it comes to wildlife management.
This lawsuit is testing just how far that reckless approach is allowed to go.
