Environmental activists are demanding that Colorado Parks and Wildlife prohibit the industrial sale of wildlife furs, submitting a citizen rulemaking petition urging swift motion on Monday.
Opposite to the huge protections granted by Colorado to different animals, the Centennial State at present permits the for-profit sale of furs from all species deemed “furbearers,” based on the Heart for Organic Range, which filed the petition.
Among the many state’s furbearers are beavers, ringtails, purple foxes, pine martens and bobcats, in addition to swift foxes, which is a species of particular concern within the state, the group famous.
“Auctioning off piles of pelts from native animals is a relic of an period that drove iconic species, like beavers and bison, to the brink,” Samantha Miller, senior carnivore campaigner for the Heart for Organic Range, said in a statement.
Miller emphasised the necessity for Colorado to align with the insurance policies of the North American Mannequin of Wildlife Conservation — a set of ideas that many companies use to information their wildlife administration and conservation protocols.
One key tenet of this mannequin is the prohibition of business gross sales of wildlife, as such practices have hastened the declines and even extinctions of iconic species, the group warned.
Though the petition requires the elimination of wildlife fur commercialization, it does embody some exceptions for hand-tied fishing flies crafted with incidental fur and for conventional Western felted hats, in recognition of the cultural significance of this stuff.
The petition additionally doesn’t have an effect on gross sales at shops that promote merchandise with factory-farmed fur, versus that of animals within the wild.
“Our state must modernize wildlife administration to confront in the present day’s biodiversity disaster,” Miller stated.
Advancing a state-wide regulation, versus focused native insurance policies, would guarantee uniformity and keep away from the creation of a “patchwork” of ordinances that trigger enforcement difficulties, based on the petition.
The doc additionally careworn {that a} ban on industrial fur gross sales would stay “in line with the large sport industrial searching ban” upheld by Colorado, the place it’s a felony to promote or buy massive sport.
After receiving the petition, Colorado Parks and Wildlife then should evaluation the doc and advocate to the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Fee — the decisionmaker on citizen rulemaking petitions — whether or not the request needs to be denied or granted.
The Hill has reached out to Colorado Parks and Wildlife for remark.