Welcome to Sportsman of Colorado, Colorado’s premier outdoor radio show heard every Saturday afternoon on KLZ 560 with insights on hunting, fishing, archery, guns and ammo from Colorado’s top outfitters featuring the industry’s leading experts on how to enhance your experience in the great outdoors. Now, here’s your host, Scott Watley.
Welcome to Sportsman of Colorado again. Thank you so much for being with us today. We appreciate it very, very much.
Quick reminder now, and a lot of people have told me they can’t catch the show on Saturdays, but they listen on Sundays. So our live show is Saturdays 1 to 2, and on Sundays, we replay at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. right here on KLZ 560, of course. And actually, during the week, we’ve got a segment, too, that will replay the previous Saturday show on Thursdays from 9 to 10 a.m. So, hey, four times, hopefully you can catch it.
If not, hey, our podcast is sponsored by Davis Tent. And we appreciate that very much. And you can catch it there or anywhere else you catch your podcast.
Well, I’ve been promoting on our Facebook page and social media that we would be talking about Proposition 127, which was formerly Initiative 91 on the whole trophy hunting, Bobcat, Mountain Lion Deal, Lynx, as well, which is kind of a joke in itself. But I’ve got Luke Wiedel with us. Luke is on the board with Coloradans for Responsible for Wildlife Management and kind of the lead policy volunteer here, also vice chair for the corporate relations with our Denver chapter with RMEF.
So Luke, thanks for being with us. How are you, sir?
Thank you, Scott. I’m doing OK.
Good.
Thanks for having me.
You bet. And also our good buddy, Will Marquardt, Will Davis Tent, and Will has done a ton. Don’t have an official title for him, but I’m just telling you, he’s worked his tail off for helping us with this as well.
So, Will, thanks for being with us, sir.
Hey, Scott. Great to be here.
All right, Luke, I’m going to start with you. Take a minute, and, you know, as I said, it was Formulant Initiative 91, so we’re trying to get everybody to know, don’t look for that number, look for this Prop 127. But as you are going around and talking about this, and, you know, no time limit here, so just kind of explain to listeners that may not be aware, and it shocks me.
I meet people every day that listen to the show, that have heard a little bit, but don’t really know much of the details. So fill us in here a little bit of what’s happening on our November ballot.
Sure. Well, yeah, I mean, I think it’d be beneficial just to give a brief overview of where we’re at and what’s happened just quickly. And then we can get into the details, what’s really going on and what’s at stake, which is very, very important.
On the ballot, it would be a statewide ballot initiative called Proposition 127, which asks the Colorado voters whether or not they want to prohibit the hunting and all methods of take that prohibit the harvest of mountain lions, bobcats and lynx. And so that’s called Proposition 127. It was formerly Initiative 91 before the proponents of the initiative had the signatures that it takes to get it on the ballot.
As most of your listeners know, that Initiative 91 did get signatures required by the Secretary of State, and it was certified and put on the ballot. And what we’ve been waiting for for I guess just a couple of weeks ago, this proposition number came out and the Secretary of State gave it 127. So now that’s what the voters will be voting on.
And Initiative 91 is no longer that has transformed into Proposition 127. And so, you know, the voters will be asked in November whether or not they want to ban the hunting of mountain lions, bobcats and lynx. And, you know, it’s important to state that this initiative is being led by a group called CATS.
CATS aren’t trophies. And they’ve picked up momentum, but the implications of a yes vote on this, and we can go into the details or however you want to do this, but the implications of a yes vote on this, should the voters approve it, are enormous. I mean, they’re groundbreaking, they’re earth shattering, they change hunting and what it looks like in the west potentially forever.
And so that’s why this is so important. I don’t know where you want to go from there, but we’re happy to talk about however you want to navigate this.
Okay. Will, any input there from what Luke said there?
Well, no, I think that was really well stated. And I think that the most important thing that Luke said that we want people to understand is that the implications of this really are enormous, and it really does go far beyond anything having to do with cat hunting. You know, really sets up this animal rights activist kind of movement to do more insidious things to the hunting world.
And so we really, I mean, if you’ve ever needed to pay attention regarding what’s going on in the hunting and science-based wildlife management world, it’s right now.
Yeah, no doubt. Again, if you’re just joining us, Luke Wiedel is with us and Will Marquardt. Yeah, Luke, go ahead.
I’m sorry to interrupt, but just to piggyback off what Will said, you know, we’ll go right into this and then we can see where it goes and how to talk about the details. But it’s true that while this initiative asks the voter whether or not they want to ban the hunting of these big cat species in Colorado, the goal for the proponents of it, the animal rights extremists and by the way, this group is a very fringy group even within that community. They’re very much extremists and they go beyond what I would argue is even the kind of mainstream animal rights groups in this country.
And so the bigger picture and the larger goal at hand is really not to just ban cat hunting in Colorado, but it’s to ban all hunting. So as many of your listeners might know, early on in this process and it’s been literally about a 12-month process since this initiative dropped, it had to go before the title board. And initially when it was initiative 91, they wanted to ask voters whether or not the voter of Colorado wanted to ban trophy hunting.
And the title board, thanks to some of the work that all of us did at CRWM, and many, many others who supported us, we got the word trophy hunting struck from the title. Now that language still remains in the measure of the initiative, in the language of the measure itself. And so should the voters say yes to 127 and to ban this big cat hunting in Colorado, what they’re really doing is endorsing a statutory change.
And so in statute or by statute, at that point in time, the definition of trophy hunting would be a statute. And you would have, let me read this to you, you would have a statutory definition of trophy hunting. And so the problem there is, you could literally ban all sorts of hunting, and that is the goal.
So in other words, what they’re asking the voter is to prohibit trophy hunting as intentionally killing, wounding, pursuing or entrapping a mountain lion, bobcat or lynx, or discharging or releasing any deadly weapon at a mountain lion, bobcat or lynx. And so the problem is, once the voter says yes to that, the next step for these extremists is simply inserting the next big game species, especially the iconic ones which have much more social kind of attention than others like big horn sheep or black bears, or what’s to say we can not ban the pursuit of pheasants with labradors or retrievers. I mean, that is where this is headed.
It’s very scary and the implications are large. And so if there are people that are listening that are bird hunters or quail hunters, fly fishermen, and they don’t really have anything to do with pursuing mountain lines, as many of us in the hunting community don’t really, it’s important to recognize how this ties into the future of wildlife management in not just Colorado, but the entire west and all of North America. because the precedent that this sets is very, very scary, and they’re well on their way to doing it by using mountain lines, bobcats, and links as kind of a first step or something that really raises a lot of social reaction.
Right, right. Now, Will, one thing that I was seeing on social media a lot, and I’m sure you guys saw it too. I mean, over the last several weeks before Labor Day, especially, people were saying, how come I’m not seeing billboards?
How come we’re not seeing TV ads? Well, we didn’t know the prop number to tell everybody what to do. And now that we do, there is a strategy on the marketing.
And certainly, I’m sure we may have some, quote, cat’s listeners, but share however you feel comfortable in some of the strategy that’s going to be going behind some of the marketing and advertising this to inform our voters.
Yeah, I mean, right now, we are implementing the things that you’re talking about. And I’m not going to really specifically get into it. But what we’re going to see is a campaign that’s multifaceted.
It’s going to be media that you’ll see on TV. It’ll be things that you’ll see on a yard and on a bumper sticker and so on. That really advertises this far and wide.
So whether you’re looking at a billboard driving down I-25, like you can do now north of town, there’s an advertisement running for this on a billboard. You’re going to see more of that kind of thing. And the difficulty was there were people literally putting it on the side of the semi trucks as proposition, well, initiative 91 weeks ago.
Well, that’s just confusing to voters because that’s not what they’re going to see. And so we did have to be in a little bit of a, I mean, we’ve done as much education as we could from a science-based wildlife management perspective, but we’ve had to really wait for 127. So what’s going on right now?
A lot of printing, a lot of things that support advertising. And people are going to start seeing those things over the coming few days. But it’s also important to remember that they’re not going to see some of it because we’re not aiming at hunters.
We’re aiming at suburban moms and suburban dads. I mean, those are the people in nine counties in particular, that really matter to this effort, that they understand that this isn’t something that supports their values to vote yes on something like Prop 127.
Yeah. And Luke, that is the key to this and winning. And we look back, and I know Dan Gates, our fearless leader, so to speak, has talked about many times, had the hunters just showed up and really voted on the wolf issue, we would have won that.
How do we get the guys and gals that call themselves Sportsmen and Outdoorsmen to pay attention to this and vote and not just figure out, oh, it’ll never happen?
Well, I mean, I don’t imagine I’m trying to convince anybody on your show which way to vote.
Right.
But there’s a lot of, there are a series of things that we can all be doing. And you know what, if we’re, if each one of us as listeners and each one of us as sportsmen and women in the state are not doing at least one thing, then shame on us because we’re going to wake up on November 6th and this is literally, this is not just like, oh, we lost the season of this. This is literally like, it’s potentially over.
Like hunting as we know it is changed forever. And so, I mean, I am not a, you know, I’m not even a pessimist and I’m certainly not a conspiracy theorist. But this is where this is headed and you know, the enemy is big, it’s mean, it’s nasty and it has more tentacles than you could imagine.
I would say that yes, you are right. When about the wolf, about the wolf issue, you know, when we first pulled the wolf issue, we were down 68, like 17 points or 18 points or something like that. It was a 68 percent yes.
And at that point in time, we were not very organized, right? I mean, there’s, you know, we could go backwards and play Monday morning quarterback and all of that. But that’s water under the bridge.
And my point is that ended up being about a 50 50 vote. We almost want it. And so and so to anybody who says, oh, this state’s, you know, done for or we’re going to lose, you know, that is not that is not the case.
The polls, while I won’t go into details, are tight. And there’s a bunch of there’s a nice chunk of undecided voters in the middle. It’s in a dead heat on either side.
And there’s a nice chunk of undecided voters in the middle. So what does that mean? Well, it’s up to us, Scott.
It’s up to us to do a number of different things. Number one, this campaign needs money, you know, through savethehuntcolorado.com or CWDB, that’s Colorado’s Wildlife Deserves Better. This campaign campaign continues to be need money and that earlier the better, you know, balance balance go out on October 11th.
And the money is more important and more well spent earlier than later. And it’s going to take a lot of grassroots efforts from our people, you know, talking to people. Don’t be afraid.
Go talk. Make it a goal to talk to 20 neighbors or 10 neighbors and go to 10 businesses. Get the materials that we’re able to send you and go to 10 businesses and 20 neighbors.
Talk to people at church. Talk to people at school. Talk to people in the grocery store.
I did that three times the other day with my kids. You know, I could tell people were going out cutting and loading carts. I said, you know, talk about this stuff.
And I think the number one key here. Well, I guess the final thing I would encourage your voters to do is to vote. I mean, there are a whole bunch of sportsmen, you know, conservatives, that literally don’t vote.
They think, well, my vote doesn’t count in the state of Colorado anymore. I’m not going to vote. That is literally the worst thing we could do, because I guarantee you, if we all show up, the polls suggest that we all show up and we vote no on Proposition 127, we are going to win this thing.
And if we do, the implications are much brighter. They’re much more positive. They’re much more, you know, they’re they’re they’re very, very bright for the future of wildlife management, of hunting and of, to be honest with you, wildlife in the state.
Let’s not forget that there’s like 93, 94 percent of us in the state that recreate in some capacity. Okay. In the state, outdoors, they’re not all hunters.
I mean, we’re a small portion of the population, but we all benefit from proper, appropriate scientific wildlife management that has been a success story that has created a very robust population of lions in the state. And so to anybody that says that there’s no other solution to having a robust lion population than to manage them through regulated hunting. And so through this whole system that we’ve created as sportsmen and women, it’s to the benefit of the 93, 94 percent of the people in the state that recreate and get to enjoy wildlife, all of the 961 species of wildlife in the state, even if they don’t hunt or fish.
And so anyway, there’s a number of things that we can be doing as sportsmen. And that all starts now. I mean, some people are critical that we’re behind the ball.
No, we’re not. We just received the number.
Yeah.
It’s time to go to work.
Yeah, for sure. Again, Luke Wiedel is with us and Will Marquardt. It’s Proposition 127.
And hey, stay tuned. We’re going to be doing as much as we can about this. And Will, I guess I have a question for you.
You know, as we we talk to people and try to inform them on really what all this means, it has, I guess, surprised me in some way when you get to folks that don’t really hunt. But one lady was asked, I said, what do you think when you hear a mountain lion hang? She goes, well, you all just go out and shoot a mountain lion if you see it.
And I was like, no, no, no. I said, you know, we have to take a class to even get a tag. And do you know that, you know, that while there’s some licenses given out, that there’s a quota and once that quota is met, then that tag is no good.
And, you know, and I think Luke just said it perfectly there. I don’t know. I mean, I would think this is probably one of our best times for the population of lions because of the management in our state.
Would you agree?
Oh, absolutely. And all the evidence is there. And the CPW, you know, 350 wildlife biologists, they’ve done the most extensive wild or cougar mountain lion studies of the world.
I mean, it’s impressive what they’ve done. And they understand and have been clear that regulated hunting is a big part of the ability to grow mountain lions effectively. And I know that’s counterintuitive to some people.
I know.
But they need the ability to manage these populations on an area by area basis. And the way that you do that and keep people safe and keep pets safe and and whatnot, one of the key tools they really have is regulated hunting. And so, you know, as Luke was saying, we need to do this, you know, one every every single hunter can talk to somebody every day about this.
Sure.
Make sure that people around them and their hunting buddies are voting. I mean, there’s real reason for optimism. We beat this issue clearly.
Eleven zero votes at the Wildlife Council twice. We beat it in the Senate Agriculture Committee. When we were told we were lost four to one, we won four to one.
And now, out of desperation, they’re going directly to the voters. And we can win again. We’d be four and oh, and I guarantee you, there’d be a back off if we beat them right here and we can do it.
Yep, absolutely. So, Luke, last thing for you, you mentioned and Will mentioned, printing going on and stuff. So, yard signs, stickers, whatever.
Will you let us know when some of that’s available and then so we can get that on the airways and try to let people know how we can get those dispersed?
I definitely will. And in the meantime, I would say if your listeners are serious about helping and everybody should be in one capacity or another, even if it’s something small, whatever you can do. I would say you could go to the Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management page and contact us.
just say, hey, Luke, can you help me with some materials? And that’s savethehuntcolorado.com. You can send us an email through the contact tab page there, and that would work just fine.
I’d be happy to answer people’s emails to get those forwarded to me.
OK. And Will, there’s a raffle going on that, too, right? On CRWM with a hunt and a nice Gunwerks.
Oh, yeah, that’s right. Thanks for mentioning that. We’ve got another Gunwerks.
Is it? I think it’s a 300 PRC, you know?
Yeah, I believe it is. I believe it is. Yeah.
When I was looking at it the other day.
Yeah. And there’s this awesome whitetail hunt. Go ahead, Luke.
I was just going to say, yeah, it’s through SCI Colorado. So they’re the ones doing that.
Yeah, Brett Eichsten.
Yeah.
Helping us there. And I think it’s 50 bucks a ticket. All right.
Again, Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management. And I think it’s like a mid October draw date. We’ll get you more information on that even before the end of the show.
I’ll include that in another segment and get you the details. But folks, we’ve all got to get involved. This is we nobody on the bench on this one.
And hey, everybody must be on the field and get involved and we can do our part. We can be victorious here and win this. And if we don’t, man, it’s going to be irreparable damage.
But hey, we’re going to go on the positive side and say we’re going to win it. But we can’t do it without you. We can’t do it without money.
And we can’t do it without explaining it to, as these guys have said, to our non-hunting friends and let them know really what this would mean. So guys, hey, I appreciate your time. I know you both are very busy and we will certainly keep everybody informed.
We may be doing this every week here up to the election. I don’t know, but we’re going to try to keep everybody informed. So, Will, thank you for your time, sir.
Thanks, Scott. All right.
And Luke, thank you, sir.
You bet, Scott.
All right. You guys have a good day. You’re listening to Sportsman of Colorado.
We got to take a quick break and we’ll be back with more right after this.
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Welcome back to Sportsman of Colorado. Again, thank you so much for being with us. Well, after we did our interview with Will and Luke Wiedel, Luke and I got to talk a little bit.
And there was a few more things we wanted to cover. So I asked Will, Luke, if he could hang on. I don’t know why I get you guys names mixed up.
Luke, but thanks for being with us. How are you, bud?
You bet I’m doing fine, Scott.
Good, good, man. I appreciate you hanging with us. just so much to go over.
And man, even last night, I was looking through some things on social media. And man, just so much misinformation out there. And people are not understanding a lot about this battle that we’re going through, you know.
And then really, well, we’re all trying to do to get everybody informed here. So, man, I’m glad we got a few replays of our show. And by the way, if you miss our show on Saturdays one to two, you can catch us twice on Sundays.
That’s at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. And then also on Thursdays at 9 a.m. we will replay the previous Saturday show. So hopefully one of those times you can catch. And then, of course, you can catch our podcast wherever you catch yours.
All right, Luke, hey, and by the way, if you did not hear our first segment, Luke is kind of a lead policy volunteer, you know, with RMEF. He’s doing a lot of things with Wildlife Deserve Better. And Luke, let’s kind of take that entity there, that Wildlife Deserve Better and kind of educate everybody about that.
And then we’ll get into a few things.
Yeah, sure, Scott. I’m one of several members on the Issues Committee for Colorado’s Wildlife Deserve Better, which is an issues committee set up to to oppose Proposition 127, what used to be Initiative 91, and is now Proposition 127. The NO campaign is called Colorado’s Wildlife Deserve Better.
Okay. All right. Good deal.
All right.
I mean, you know, obviously I’ve been talking to somebody who wrote before, came on air here, just about this fur ban that it’s happening. And it’s like, man, they’re coming from every angle, dude, from guns and the taxes and just everything.
If you live in the city and county of Denver, that’s correct. You’ll be able to vote on two different ballot initiatives that are specific to to Denver. Those are a fur ban, so a ban of fur sales within the city and county of Denver.
That would include the Indian powwow. That would include all sorts of sale of fly fishing materials or fly tying, like rabbit furs and all kinds of things that are used.
Cowboy hats?
Cowboys, beaverline cowboy hats, which are oftentimes sold in Denver, but more specifically or more importantly at the stock show. So yeah, and then a slaughterhouse ban. There’s one slaughterhouse in the inner city and county of Denver and employs, I think, many hundreds of people.
The economic, the adverse economic offense effects are immense on that one. And I believe that one slaughterhouse produces like the majority of lamb within the country, if I’m not mistaken. So it’s a big, big deal.
And it’s all activists from out of state in cooperation with some of our in-state activists, including potentially or more than likely the first gentleman, Marlon Reese and the governor and so forth. So yeah, there’s a lot of attacks coming at a lot of different levels. Yeah, and Proposition 127 is sort of the biggest, meanest statewide one of those or of those attacks.
Sure. Now I saw something, I mean, got an e-mail from you guys and there’s going to be some yard signs available here pretty quick and also some pretty neat deals of, hey, we’re all pick up drivers out there. You want to get something on your tailgate to help in this, that’s available too.
Yeah, a lot of us are doing that, Scott. I mean, that particular effort is separate from the campaign, the opposed campaign itself, but a lot of us have just organized personally and are paying for tailgate wraps, which say, we have a variety of different, I personally have helped spread this around. We have a variety of different tailgate wraps that people can just e-mail to their local auto graphics shop and get those printed up and put on tailgates, or perforated vinyl coverings for windows, or whatever.
And those are pretty cool. Stick with Smart Wildlife Management, vote no on Proposition 127, those types of things are out there. Your listeners could get a hold of me personally too, as a personal volunteer.
How would you like for them to do that? I know you’re busy, so you want to e-mail?
Yeah, e-mail would be good, Scott. If they could send an e-mail to me personally at luke.wiedel.com, I’d be happy to point them in the right direction.
Great. I’ll give that out again for everybody here a little bit. So let’s just discuss this again a little bit.
I know we went through a lot with Will there, but as we hung up, like I say, you mentioned quite a few things there that you wanted to touch on too. So man, I’ll just let you start wherever you would like.
Sure. I would say that this is going to be up to us. The polls suggest that this thing is neck and neck, and there’s a nice big chunk of undecided voters in the middle.
We live in a state with 5.8 million people, and I think probably close to 5 million of those people live in suburban or urban areas, and those are the people that this campaign will be targeting, you know, specifically like a nine-county region. And, you know, I think that one of the things we have to really keep in mind as sportsmen and women is that oftentimes we’re afraid to talk to people. But in this case, it’s going to be up to each of us trying to talk to 20 neighbors and 10 businesses, and really tell them that not only should these types of ballot initiatives or any ballot initiative that has to do with wildlife management really should be voted down, but we shouldn’t have a chance to vote on them at all.
That’s the thing. These things are so complicated, and lion management and wildlife management in general, especially in Colorado with this many people, is so surgical, so data-driven, so scientific, and it’s done for the benefit of all 961 species of wildlife. And so when we take away, when the electorate that doesn’t have all the facts and the science and the data takes away one of the tools to manage, especially our predator populations, it affects all species of wildlife.
And it just, you know, it kind of disrupts things. It disrupts the harmony that we’ve created, which is the ability to manage our wildlife in a state with 6 million people. And that’s what we’re really trying to encourage people to do, is really think about what we’re actually voting on, when we’re given the ability to take away a management tool that is very, very useful.
Not only is it useful for ungulate populations and human wildlife conflicts, but it’s useful for the lion populations. And so as your listeners go out and talk to neighbors and talk to friends and talk to schools and people at school or people at church or whatever it is, they should be equipped or armed with a few simple facts. And one of them is that in 1965, before we had classified lions as a big game species, there was less than 200 of them on the landscape.
Once we decided to manage them to have robust lion populations that existed in harmony with other species of wildlife and with humans, we to date have an estimated over 4,000 lions, not including kittens, adult lions, in the state. And that’s a success story, but that wasn’t done by accident, and it’s certainly not done by taking active management away from the experts and the professionals. That’s done in part or largely in part because of regulated hunting efforts and the data that’s gained from hunter-harvest and the surgical nature of management that is only done through hunter-harvest.
Another fact that your listeners could be equipped with is that in states like California, when lion hunting was taken away, they kill the same amount, if not more, lions than they did when regulated hunting was used as a tool.
Hey, don’t get the revenue, right?
Yeah, not only do they not get the revenue, but the animal itself, which is a shame, is wasted. They’re either let lie or thrown away or destroyed. Oftentimes, they’re euthanized with, they’re not edible.
They can’t be used for all the parts and pieces and meat of the animal. It’s a shame. That’s what these groups are, simply the groups that are behind this, the proponents are extremely anti-harvest.
They think we should all live differently. They think we should all do things differently. It’s just not reality.
It’s not reality at all. This is a very dangerous ballot initiative. I just think it’s important that each one of your listeners gets out there, talks to people, even if they just use a couple of those simple facts.
It’s not good for the lions. It’s not good for lion populations, bobcat populations, and it’s certainly not good for our 961 species of wildlife.
Yeah. I put out a post yesterday that you guys were going to be on with Will, and we were going to be talking about this, and this guy wrote me back and said, Oh, you’re preaching to the choir. What are you doing to get the word out to everybody else?
The non-hunters. And I’m like, that’s why we’re doing this. So because we we all can’t do it ourselves.
We need all the hunters to do exactly what you said. Hey, even pick a number, set yourself a goal of a week to how many folks you can talk to wherever you go. But we’ve got to do it in a smart way.
And you’ve got to have the knowledge. And that’s what we’re trying to share with you today. A little bit of just how to go about that.
And, you know, Luke, and I told Dan Gates this as well, but, you know, so many people are like, why aren’t we seeing ads? Now, of course, we had to wait to get the number, 127, but they’re just like, why aren’t we seeing ads everywhere? And there’s going to be some areas where they’re not going to see advertising.
So I think we’re not doing anything. But there’s a reason and a strategy behind that, correct?
Yeah. I mean, the campaign itself, you know, it’s being run by Mark Truex with PacWest Strategies. And there’s a certain timeline of or spectrum of effectiveness when our resources are spent and where and what that message is.
And so that now that we have a number, which is 127, proposition 127, we’re able to go out there and deploy those resources to oppose that ballot initiative in a way that we weren’t, and it would be confusing if we would have done it with initiative 91. I mean, people were all out like, vote no on initiative 91. But that’s not even on the ballot.
It’s not what now, what is now, what was initiative 91 is now proposition 127. And so there’s a time and a place that campaign is starting. People will start to see billboards and tailgate wraps and materials and yard signs and all that stuff.
It’s happening now. It’s going to happen over the next couple of weeks. And like I said, what I would tell your listeners is that we have about one month.
I mean, ballots come out on October 11th. And now is the time. And you know, I would ask your listeners and myself included, what do you want the result to be when you wake up on November 6th?
And no matter what the result is, how are you going to feel if you didn’t at least go talk to five neighbors and five businesses or 20 neighbors or friends and family, et cetera, et cetera? This is up to us. Number one, you got to vote.
And number two, you got to try and shine some light on this issues for your friends and neighbors that don’t know this stuff. I mean, there’s like 70 or 80 percent of the people in the state, the electorate, that is supportive of hunting and fishing. But when they get confused with ballot initiatives that talk about the definition of trophy hunting and call us trophy hunters and mock and make fun and call us murderers, it confuses everybody.
To your point about preaching to the choir, well, you got to preach to the choir first, which is what we’ve been doing for 12 months, before you preach to the congregation and beyond. And so now is the congregation and beyond part, where that message is being spread out to all the electorate in a way that is surgical, and in a way that is effective. And that’s what I would say to that.
I mean, yeah, that part of the campaign is underway.
Right.
You know, a lot of people have said to, well, doesn’t CPW have scientists and biologists where they could testify and go fight this fight and prove it from a science standpoint? And I’ll say, yeah, that’d be nice if they could do that. But what do you say to people when they say, where are our biologists and scientists and why can’t they get up and testify about this?
Well, unfortunately, the agency, yeah, very professional. I mean, between whatever it is, two or three hundred biologists and PhDs and so forth and expert staff. And I would encourage also your listeners and beyond to go and listen to carnivore management practice and strategy and so forth on CPW’s website.
It’s all there. The resource is all there. They just can’t come out in support of or against a ballot initiative unless the governor takes a position on on a ballot initiative on that specific ballot initiative.
And so we’re left in a situation where CPW can’t really say anything.
Yeah.
And that’s a shame, but it’s a reality.
Yeah, man.
That’s why it’s all on us, Scott. It’s all on us.
Exactly. On the tailgate deal real quick, have you you say some of you guys have already done that? Are there a couple of the rat places in that already have this, that maybe we could give those names out to those companies where people would go there?
Is that?
Yeah.
And if you don’t have it right now, you can get it to me later.
Yeah, I’ll get it to you later and maybe you can post it or bring it up again. I’ll get that to you. I mean, you could use a variety of different ones.
Oh, yeah. I just didn’t know if you all had that.
Once you have that file, there are some. I can dig a little and get some of that information, but anybody, any reputable shop should be able to do it.
Right. And Luke, I think I’m right in this, that this is kind of a testing ground, Colorado, for this, right? And we feel like, hey, if we defeat it here, hey, not that they’re not going to come back and try it again, but this is going to be a pretty good wind force.
And so, but it’s happening in a lot of states on different things with animals, right? And hunting. Oh, yeah.
No, this one specifically is, you know, it will it will set a precedent for for for many other Western states, also for Colorado, and not just predator management and lions and bobcats, but but other species of wildlife, other ways we manage hunting, how we’re how how the electorate is able to simply take away management tools or take away hunting. Like I said earlier, it’s not about lion hunting. It’s not about Colorado.
It’s about their end game, which is to literally end harvest. And this will this will set a precedent to to start to to really rapidly chisel away at other pursuits. I mean, big horn sheep.
If we’re able, if the electorate defines what trophy hunting is in this ballot initiative, and they say yes to this, it will it will set in statute a definition of trophy hunting, which can then trickle into a number of other species. And that’s what’s so scary.
Yeah, for sure. All right, so Wildlife Deserve Better, is that, and I should have asked you, is that.com or dot org?
Yeah, it’s it’s wildlifedeservebetter.com. Let me just double check that.
Okay, just want to make sure I should have asked you that for, my bad.
That’s okay.
Yeah, it’s it’s wildlifedeservebetter.com.
Okay.
It is the opposed campaign. You know, we still need money over the next several weeks. This is something that is, like I said, it’s crucial to the future of hunting in the state and in the West and in all of North America.
And in we can win this thing. And so for we can win.
And it has been cool to see some other organizations. And I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m not disappointed in a few organizations that have not seemed to come to this. But overall, there has been a lot of great other conservation organizations that have showed up to understand, hey, maybe they’re about pheasants, maybe they’re about ducks, whatever.
But they’ve come to the fight too, which is really cool.
Yeah, generally speaking, most of these organizations in collaboration with one another recognize that this is not about lions. It’s about the ability to manage wildlife per the North American model, whether that’s ducks, pheasants, mule deer or mount lions. So absolutely.
I mean, this is, as did the wolf introduction, this has brought a lot of collaboration to the landscape.
Sure. Anything else, sir, you think we need to touch on for everybody?
No, I mean, we can continue this conversation over the coming weeks. No, we will. Whatever hat you want me to wear, whether it’s RMEF volunteer or Colorado’s Wildlife Deserve Better or a board member of CRWM, I can put on whatever hat you want.
We can get everybody up to speed.
Well, no, we appreciate it. The main thing I want to get out there is just facts and because you see so much on social media, you know, and we’re just trying to say, hey, we’re just trying to give you the facts. And if you have questions and maybe you’re working and or whatever, and it’s just not convenient for you to call in or something to the show.
You can always text me 720-201-8585 if you’ve got a question or you’ve got something you want us to cover with these guys. But I’m telling you, as Luke said, we have all got to get off the bench here and not be observers, because if we do, we’re probably going to observe something that is not going to be good for us. And we’ll really change the way hunting is here in our state for sure.
Now, once again, if you want to get maybe a tailgate wrap, you want some yard signs, you can email Luke at luke.wiedel, W-I-E-D-E-L at gmail.com and he will get that. Again, that’s luke.wiedel, W-I-E-D-E-L at gmail.com and he will get that. And Luke, we appreciate your time.
Thanks for hanging with us again. And anything that comes up even during the week, you know, for our weekday show, man, we know we’ll get you guys on. So you just let us know.
You got it, Scott, I appreciate it.
Thanks so much. Appreciate it as well. You’re listening to Sportsman of Colorado.
We got to take our last break. And we’ll be back with more right after this.
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Yeah, but we do have something in common.
Really? What’s that?
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Yeah, definitely not your typical dealership.
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This is KLZ 560, your home station.
Welcome back to Sportsman of Colorado. Hey, before we end up today, we want to get our good buddy on, Dan Johnson, Lin-Lau Chevrolet, Drive East and Pay the Least. Dan, what’s happening this weekend?
Well, we’re selling cars. We’re in the home stretch of September. I can’t believe it’s September already.
My goodness.
Crazy.
It is.
Anyway, still trying to clean up a little bit. We got a few of my hail units left that are tremendous buys, as you know. And that, I mean, I got some of them, a couple of Silverado’s on there for $15,000 off.
And, you know, yeah, it’s a really good deal. I think I got, I don’t know, 20 or 30 left. And but, you know, they’re moving.
And, you know, if you’re not interested in that, I’ve had lots of shipments of the new. And, you know, the Silverado deal is really good right now. Either low interest, you know, we got 0% or, you know, you can on half 10 Silverado’s and or, you know, a big rebate, one of the two.
So, you know, the deals are the deals are out there.
The deals are there. Yeah. And folks, hey, these hail deals.
And yeah, I didn’t hear the show where I said it. I’m trying to get it out of here. But I ended up doing that with Dan.
And I’m telling you, and Dan, with some of them, hey, you know, you can put a hood or something, you know, where they’re not staring at it like you did with me for a little bit there. And then then I just decided after a few months to go and get it fixed. And, man, Dan’s PDR department did amazing.
I mean, absolutely looks like a brand new truck and still came out way on the winning side with things, Dan. So people really ought to consider these hail vehicles, because, man, there are some great, great values. And hey, if you’re ever upside down on vehicles, that’s no fun.
This is a great way to get into one right, isn’t it, Dan? That’s right.