Colorado voters banned leg-hold traps, snares and certain poisons in 1996, because they were repulsed by the suffering the devices inflicted on beavers, bobcats, foxes and even beloved pets like Alice, a Boulder dog who lost two legs to a leg-hold trap set near a public trail.

By approving Amendment 14, voters endorsed a ban on these tortuous devices except for a narrow exception for ranchers and farmers who sustain crop or livestock damage from wildlife. That exemption was supposed to be tightly controlled, used for only 30 days a year and only when ranchers and farmers had tried at least two legal methods (including shooting, guard dogs etc.).

Three decades after Colorado’s historic vote, gaping loopholes in the law and inconsistency in state oversight have yielded a system a system that allows outlawed traps to be used with almost no accountability. Banned leg-hold traps are still sold in Colorado stores and still set on private land, now with only a hint of oversight.

A special investigation by Science for Colorado Wildlife, a nonprofit that aims to protect wildlife through science-based education, has yielded a cache of public records, which revealed the following:

• Permits issued for the exemption to the leg-hold trap ban routinely fail to document any effort by landowners to control wildlife damage through legal means.
• Wildlife officers have produced no evidence showing that they actively verified the landowners’ use of banned traps only as a last resort.
• An ambiguous state law enables Colorado Parks and Wildlife to shirk its oversight role, skip meaningful verification of landowners’ claims, and keep minimal public documentation.
• CPW’s revised permit-application takes a small step toward greater accountability, but a proposed reform would help significantly, requiring permits for all banned traps, requiring adequate documentation and proof of legal methods of wildlife control, and demanding public accountability.