Colorado Hunters & Anglers for Sensible Wildlife Conservation
We are a group of passionate hunters, anglers and conservationists who care deeply about wildlife, habitat, and the future of responsible outdoor traditions. We support ethical hunting and fishing – and we OPPOSE Constitutional Amendment 83 because it is vague, deceptive, pushed by out-of-state special interests, and simply does NOT belong in Colorado’s constitution.
Our mission is simple: Keep wildlife management in the hands of wildlife experts, not courts.
Eric Washburn
For the past 20 years, Eric has consulted for private, non-profit, and philanthropic clients on a range of energy and natural resource issues. Prior to becoming a consultant, he co-founded and led the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP), a coalition of national hunting and fishing and land conservation organizations working together to promote natural resource conservation policy. For ten years, Eric worked in various policymaking and management capacities in the United States Senate. He was a Senior Policy Advisor to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, where he oversaw the development and U.S. Senate passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2002. Prior to that, he worked for Senator Harry Reid as the Democratic Staff Director for the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, overseeing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and other federal agencies. Before joining the EPW Committee, he was Legislative Director for Senator Tom Daschle and managed energy and natural resource issues for the senator. He holds an MFS in Ecology from Yale University, an AB from Bowdoin College and was a Bullard Fellow at Harvard University Forest. Eric conceived of and successfully advocated for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to draft and promulgate, the 2001 Forest Service Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which protected 58 million acres of National Forest habitat. Eric is a life member of Trout Unlimited and Pheasants Forever, and a professional member of the Boone and Crockett Club. He lives in Steamboat Springs, Colorado with his wife Robin and his sons Marat and Shokhan.
Gary Skiba
Gary Skiba is a lifelong hunter and angler, growing up in western Pennsylvania his father trained him early in hunting, fishing, gun safety, ammo reloading and outdoor skills. They hunted everything from woodchucks (groundhogs), crows, small game including squirrels, rabbits, and ruffed grouse. When he was old enough to hunt white-tailed deer, he joined is father and uncles at their hunting camp in northcentral Pennsylvania. He took up bowhunting in his teens, and that became his primary big game hunting method. Gary graduated from the University of New Hampshire in 1978 with a B.S, in wildlife management, and came to Colorado shortly after graduation to purse an M.S. in wildlife biology, working on bighorn sheep in Dinosaur National Monument. Shortly after graduation, he began to work as the manager of a private waterfowl hunting area near Greeley, Colorado, sparking a his current interest in waterfowl hunting and retriever training. After 3 years on the private hunting area, Gary joined the Colorado Division of Wildlife in 1987, retiring in 2010 after a career focused on threatened and endangered species management. He currently is the wildlife program manager fo rthe San Juan Citizens Alliance, a Durango based environmental advocacy group.
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Our public lands are facing the greatest pressure in decades, and Amendment 83 would make that worse by giving trapping advocates a constitutional advantage. This has nothing to do with ethical hunting or science based wildlife management. I am voting NO on 83 to protect Colorado’s wildlife and the places we all depend on.
- Jerry Mallett, President of Colorado Headwaters
What they are really trying to do with Amendment 83
Amendment 83 would weaken Colorado’s wildlife authority and elevate killing over conservation. Behind the vague language is a clear goal: to make it harder for Colorado to protect wildlife, manage seasons responsibly, and maintain ethical standards in the field.
Amendment 83 would:
• Create a higher constitutional barrier for any future wildlife rule, making even routine updates slow, costly, and vulnerable to lawsuits.
• Elevate killing over habitat protection, species recovery, and coexistence, shifting Colorado away from the balanced conservation model that hunters and anglers rely on.
• Sideline voters, the legislature, and CPW, preventing responsible adjustments to seasons, methods of take, or management tools — even when biologists recommend them.
• Repeat the mistakes seen in other states, where similar amendments have led to biologists being overruled, wildlife management distorted by litigation, and cruel, outdated practices pushed back into consideration.
Amendment 83 isn’t about protecting hunting. It’s about rewriting Colorado’s Constitution in a way that undermines science, weakens conservation, and hands power to special interests instead of the people who know these landscapes best.
AMENDMENT 83:
Bad for Coloradans. Bad for Taxpayers. Bad for Wildlife.
