By Nephi Cole
Discredited anti-hunting activist Wayne Pacelle is taking his anti-hunting roadshow to Colorado and cosplaying as a wildlife conservationist.
Pacelle’s Animal Wellness Action, the Center for a Humane Economy and a coalition of allied animal rights groups filed a June 3 citizen petition asking the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission to initiate rulemaking to ban statewide the use of traditional lead ammunition for all hunting. This is the same commission that has been plagued by the nomination of anti-hunting activists by Gov. Jared Polis. The petition asks the commission to prohibit lead ammunition for the taking of wildlife in Colorado, claiming the restriction is necessary to “protect wildlife, ecosystems and public health.”
That may be Pacelle’s pitch, but the reality is a stark contrast to what he’s attempting to sell in the “elk hunting capital of the world.” His claims are exaggerated and proven falsehoods.
Pacelle doesn’t care about wildlife. This is a sweeping ammunition restriction designed to harm Colorado hunters. It’s backed by a familiar anti-hunting activist playbook — conflate the science, ignore contradictory data and claim support for hunting. The goal is to make lawful hunting more expensive and camouflage it as conservation.
Same Playbook, New State
Pacelle’s game is not new. He drove similar petitions in other states, including New York and New Jersey. They use the same rhetoric and same demands for government mandates against traditional ammunition.
The Colorado petition asks regulators to initiate rulemaking to prohibit the use of lead ammunition for taking wildlife in Colorado. Petitioners argue that effective and commercially available nonlead alternatives exist. They say a statewide nonlead ammunition requirement is “reasonable, necessary and lawful.”
They’re wrong. They are also undermining the education and voluntary hunter choice approach endorsed unanimously by the national Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (AFWA). This petition proposal is a statewide mandate affecting hunters across species, seasons, regions and firearm platforms. Notably, Colorado has no species of wildlife with population impacts that threatened and the medical community has expressed no human health concerns related to consumption of big game consumption harvested with traditional ammunition.
Pacelle is out of touch. He clearly does not understand Colorado. Colorado already has a voluntary lead-free ammunition effort. CPW explains that House Bill 23-1036 created the Nontoxic Bullet Replacement Hunting Program, a two-year pilot program to encourage hunters to voluntarily switch to lead-free ammunition. CPW also states plainly, “No new regulations on lead ammunition have been enacted,” and that the resource is intended to help hunters make “a fully informed individual choice.”
Use of particular ammunition belongs with informed individual choice, not activist-driven prohibition.
No Supporting Science
NSSF has been clear and consistent that there is no sound scientific evidence that hunters’ use of traditional ammunition causes harm that would justify the extraordinary step of bans.
Petitioners are not asking Colorado to address a narrow, documented management problem in a specific area involving a specific species — because it does not exist. They are asking the state to impose a blanket restriction on hunters statewide that solves no wildlife population problems. The activists’ assertions and recycled claims about “indisputable” harm are patently exaggerated, gaslighting and disinformation.
Lead exposure in wildlife can and does occur, but exposure is not the same as harm. Isolated cases (always cited as justification) are not a basis for overall policy. Activists and media outlets are distorting this issue for “clicks.” They highlight individual sick animals being helped by rehabilitation centers as if they are representative of the health of free-flying populations. An individual with symptoms does not make a pandemic. That is not science. It is sampling bias turned into political messaging.
The same bias is evident in the broad claims about eagles and other scavengers. Lead is a nonpoint pollutant. There are many sources. They could include legacy lead paint, industrial contamination, mining, fishing tackle and other environmental sources that include natural soil. Good wildlife policy looks at the whole picture. This bad policy proposal fixates on hunters because of political expediency.
Firearm & Ammo Makers Fund Conservation
The glaring omission in Pacelle’s argument is the failure to acknowledge that hunters and the firearm and ammunition industry are the actual leaders in conservation. Firearm and ammunition manufacturers, hunters and recreational shooters are the most important sources of conservation funding in America.
The primary funding source of all wildlife agencies in North America are paid by firearm and ammunition manufacturers through Pittman-Robertson excise taxes. The Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act is tied to land mass and hunting license sales. That funds state wildlife agencies, habitat work, research, hunter education, public access and shooting range development. To date, the industry has contributed over $31 billion, when adjusted for inflation.
That funding model is not theory. It is the backbone of modern wildlife restoration.
That is why these ammunition-ban petitions are reckless. It isn’t an accident. Does anyone really believe Pacelle and his ilk are okay with hunting just so long as hunters use non-lead hunting ammunition? That does not pass the laugh test. They want to end all hunting. Hunters have proven they can intelligently make the choices. They should be trusted to choose the ammunition that is right for them in situations. Government should not outsource those decisions to activist groups, especially those whose true goal is the elimination of hunting as we know it. That is why Colorado policymakers must be skeptical. Pacelle’s petition is not a conservation partnership. It is a political campaign to stop hunting.
The question for Colorado is not whether wildlife matters. Hunters already answer that every season with their time, dollars and commitment. The question is whether Colorado will empower anti-hunting’s effort to turn false narratives into binding regulations.
The wildlife commission should resoundingly say no.
Nephi Cole is Director for Government Relations – State Affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation.