Colorado Big games season Dates

Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission met on September 11 & 12, 2014. There were three agenda items related to Chapter W-2 “Big Game” that were especially important to SCI and its Colorado members. Two of these items were changes to final regulations up for approval and one was a draft regulation.

The two final regulations, which were approved, included the 2014/2015 mountain lion harvest quotas and the regulatory language implementing parts of the 2015-2019 Big Game Season Structure. These changes included:

• Establishing youth preference at a minimum of 15% for limited doe pronghorn licenses, limited either-sex and antlerless deer licenses and limited antlerless elk licenses.
• Extending youth preference beyond limited rifle season to all limited seasons and methods of take offered in any given unit.
• Freezing the qualifications for the random portion of the big game draw (Hybrid Draw) and for the license allocation GMU qualifications at 2014 levels pending further discussion on or evaluation of these programs.

During the meeting, license allocation was a major topic of discussion. In fact, a separate sub-committee was formed to specifically discuss and address this issue. At the end of both meetings the decision was to keep the qualifying hunt codes for both the Hybrid Draw and the 65/35 and 80/20 allocations the same for 2015 as 2014 and further discuss the issue for subsequent years. Colorado Parks and Wildlife staff is working on some possible alternatives to address preference point creep in regards to resident and nonresident license allocations.

The one draft regulation that was presented opened consideration to adjust the non-resident big game license fee with the 2014 Consumer Price Index.

• Finalizing CPI adjustments to nonresident big game license fees.
• Annual changes to deer, elk, pronghorn, bear, moose, sheep, goat and lion seasons.
• Presenting draft language related to youth and bear season participation, license purchase cutoff dates, and season dates related to the 2015-2019 Big Game Season Structure.