Colorado Parks and Wildlife will consider a potential ban on the commercial sale of furbearers at its July commission meeting. 

The idea for a ban on the commercial sale, barter or trade of furs from furbearer species — a classification that includes 17 wildlife species like​​ foxes, beavers, coyotes, bobcats and other mesocarnivores — came from a citizen petition brought to Parks and Wildlife last year by a Colorado representative of the Center of Biological Diversity. 

The commission approved the petition in March, against the recommendation of Parks and Wildlife staff, initiating a formal rulemaking process on the proposed ban. 

Now, Parks and Wildlife is seeking public input on the proposal to inform staff’s development of an issue paper that will be presented to the commission during its July 16-17 meetings. The agency will be accepting input from the public through May 3 on EngageCPW.org.  

The proposed ban — and agency’s overall management of these 17 species — has been a topic of much debate at commission meetings for many months.  

In Colorado, furbearers can be hunted with the purchase of ​​a $10 permit available to individuals who purchase a small game license. In its 2024-25 fiscal year, the agency sold 19,620 furbearer permits. While there are currently no limits on the number that a furbearer permit-holder can kill of these species, the agency has had initial discussions about potentially imposing a daily limit.   

Samantha Miller, a Grand Lake resident and the senior carnivore campaigner for the Center for Biological Diversity who submitted the petition, has referred to the ban of commercial sale for furbearer furs as a “common sense change” and “low bar” that aligns furbearers with how Colorado manages other wildlife species. Miller and other supporters of the ban argue that allowing the commercial sale of furs incentivizes overharvesting of the animals and threatens overall biodiversity. 

In her recommendation to the commission, Laura Clellan, the newly appointed Parks and Wildlife director, wrote that the agency’s main rationale for denying the ban on commercial fur sales is that the petition “lacks solid evidence that commercial fur sales drive harvest levels in Colorado.”

Opponents of the petition supported the agency’s stance and have argued that the state’s current furbearer management works and is backed by science. Many claim that the proposed commercial ban represents a greater attack on hunting and trapping, which represents an important tradition in Colorado and supports conservation.