Amendment 83 Locks Hunting as Primary Wildlife Management Tool

One-third of the Colorado Parks and Wildlife budget comes from your wallet. Specifically, license sales generate approximately $115 million in annual revenue for the agency. That is a significant chunk of change, but it is not the whole picture. The Common Sense Institute reported that in fiscal year 2024-25, licenses, passes, fees, and permits accounted for 68% of CPW’s annual wildlife revenue. Federal grants made up another 17%, and Great Outdoors Colorado, funded by lottery tickets, contributed just 5%.

In November, voters will decide whether to lock this arrangement into the state constitution via Amendment 83. The measure would enshrine a right to hunt, fish, and harvest wildlife, establishing these activities as the preferred means of managing wildlife populations. On paper, this looks like a victory for tradition. In practice, it is a structural shift in how state agencies spend money and manage land.

The obvious take is that this protects your right to go out on the range or sit by a stream. That’s true, but it misses how the amendment operates mechanically. It prevents the legislature or future ballot measures from restricting hunting and fishing. Proponents argue that because these activities are part of Colorado’s heritage and tourism economy, they need constitutional protection from legislative erosion. The state’s official Ballot Information Booklet backs this up, noting that money from licenses benefits habitat and wildlife management.

But let’s look at the machinery behind this. Amendment 83 was brought by a conservative law firm in Colorado, yet it has been largely funded by the International Order of T. Roosevelt, a hunting advocacy group based in Marshfield, Wisconsin. This is not a local grassroots movement born from the high plains or the mountains. It is an out-of-state interest group with a specific ideological agenda bankrolling a constitutional change in a state where they do not live.

The fight over how wildlife is managed has been heating up for years. During the 2025 regular session, House Bill 1258 attempted to modify CPW Commission authority. It sought to change statutory language from the state “shall utilize” hunting and trapping methods to it “may authorize” them. This subtle linguistic shift would have opened the door for other management methods, a prospect hunters and anglers viewed as a threat to their opportunities. The bill failed, strongly opposed by groups like Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. Amendment 83 is the next step in that same battle, just with higher stakes and a permanent lock.

There is also Proposition 137 on the ballot, which asks voters to divert $175 million to $180 million a year in already collected sales taxes on sporting goods equipment toward conservation, wildfire mitigation, and watershed restoration. This is a separate issue, but it highlights the tension: one measure locks in how we manage animals, while the other dictates where tax dollars for outdoor access go.

For context, if Amendment 83 passes, the state’s ability to experiment with non-hunting management tools becomes constitutionally constrained. CPW will still manage wildlife, but the hierarchy of methods is now fixed by law rather than policy. The agency’s budget remains heavily dependent on license sales, meaning the people who pay for access are also the ones defining the rules of that access.

The practical bottom line is simple. If you buy a hunting or fishing license, your fee goes directly to CPW. Amendment 83 ensures that the primary way CPW manages populations remains hunting and fishing, protected from legislative tinkering. It doesn’t change your license price today, but it changes the legal framework that determines what happens on public lands for decades to come. You are voting on whether a Wisconsin-based advocacy group’s definition of wildlife management becomes the state’s permanent constitutional standard.