2024 Voting Guide for Hunters & Fishermen

Three key bills on the ballot in Arizona, Colorado, and Florida will impact state hunting & fishing rights.

UPDATE 11/7/24

COLORADO: Proposition 127, an attempt to ban big cat hunting, has FAILED, with 55% of voters opposing.

FLORIDA: Amendment 2, establishing a constitutional right to hunt and fish, PASSED, with nearly 63% of voters in support.

Colorado: NO on Prop 127

Four years after the state’s disastrous wolf reintroduction bill, Colorado voters will face more ballot box biology. Proposition 127 would ban big cat hunting and management.

If Prop 127 passes, ranchers will no longer be eligible for big game damage claims for livestock killed by mountain lions.

An op-ed in the Denver Post warns that the bill’s wording is dangerously vague.

Proposition 127 is not a carefully worded regulation of hunting practices that ensures the critical principles of “fair chase.” It is a complete ban that would open up a slippery slope for all hunting across Colorado.

According to Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW), managed mountain lion hunting has not hurt mountain lion populations—in fact, it has helped these species recover. There were only a few hundred mountain lions in Colorado in the 1960s; today there are 4,500.

Lynx hunting is already prohibited in the United States. So is trophy hunting; hunters are required by law to prepare harvested mountain lion meat for consumption.

California is the only other state with a mountain lion hunting ban, passed in 1990. Today, researchers have found that California mountain lions are still killed by human causes more often than natural death.

Florida: YES on Amendment 2

Voting “yes” on Amendment 2 will forever preserve hunting and fishing as a right in the state constitution.

After passing the Florida legislature almost unanimously, with one Democrat holdout, at least 60% of the state must vote yes to amend the constitution.

23 states have passed right to hunt and fish amendments.

The Vote Yes on 2 website says this amendment protects against radical anti-hunting bills:

Hunting and fishing bans were considered in at least a dozen states in 2022. The worst of which was a ballot initiative in Oregon that would have criminalized hunting, fishing and farming. This radical proposal missed being added to the ballot in Oregon by only 20,000 signatures in 2022.

Arizona: YES on Prop 134

Proposition 134 in Arizona is another effort to prevent extremist bills like those in Colorado.

If passed, voters from all 30 Arizona legislative districts must support a ballot measure before it can be voted on.

Pro-hunting groups like HOWL For Wildlife support Prop 134:

Ballot Box Biology, as we've recently seen in states like Colorado, is a real danger to science-based wildlife management. Currently Arizona could see ballot box biology on their ballot with ALL of the required signatures for a ballot initiative coming from Maricopa County alone. Prop. 134 would require ballot measures to receive support from registered voters from each of the 30 legislative districts in Arizona.  Prop. 134 would ensure that all of Arizona’s communities have a say in what makes the ballot.