{"id":22609,"date":"2025-04-18T22:18:21","date_gmt":"2025-04-19T04:18:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cpw-settles-with-hunting-groups-that-sued-claiming-commissioners-violated-open-meetings-rules\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:15:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:15:26","slug":"cpw-settles-with-hunting-groups-that-sued-claiming-commissioners-violated-open-meetings-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cpw-settles-with-hunting-groups-that-sued-claiming-commissioners-violated-open-meetings-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"CPW settles with hunting groups that sued claiming commissioners violated open meetings rules"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Mountain
Mountain lions often climb trees when pursued by hunting dogs. (Courtesy of Jason Clay\/Colorado Parks and Wildlife)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Two influential hunting organizations that sued members of the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission claiming they violated Colorado Open Meetings Law and spread false information about mountain lion hunting say they agreed to a small cash payment and the promise that commissioners would be trained in open meetings law and the agency\u2019s rules about hunting lions, lynx and bobcats.<\/p>\n

CPW spokesperson Travis Duncan confirmed the groups had reached a settlement but said once the state proved the commissioners had never communicated outside of an official meeting, the hunting groups decided to settle for \u201ca modest amount of $2,332 to avoid the expense of litigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Commissioners did participate in an open meetings training, he said, which \u201cwas also agreed to in order to expedite the settlement of the case.\u201d On Tuesday morning Duncan said the commissioners also received training in hunting regulations.<\/p>\n

Safari Club International<\/a> and The Sportsmens Alliance Foundation<\/a> in December<\/a> sued Jessica Beaulieu and Jack Murphy over an opinion piece<\/a> published in The Durango Herald<\/em> on Oct. 12 that supported Proposition 127<\/a>, which would have banned the hunting and trapping of mountain lions, lynx and bobcats.<\/p>\n

Beaulieu and Murphy both represent outdoor recreation and parks utilization on the commission.<\/p>\n

The piece criticized lion hunting as a \u201chighly unpopular, unscientific and unwarranted abuse and exploitation\u201d of wildlife that \u201cin no way contributes\u201d to the \u201cbright future of ethical outdoor recreation\u201d in Colorado. It ran just weeks before the Nov. 5 election. Proposition 127 failed by 9.4 percentage points<\/a> marking the first time since 1992 that Colorado voters rejected a wildlife ballot proposal.<\/p>\n

The Safari Club and the Sportsmen\u2019s Alliance in December alleged Beaulieu and Murphy violated Colorado\u2019s Open Meetings Law because the column was written while the commission was actively considering a revised mountain lion management plan for the Eastern Slope<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a press release announcing the settlement, the clubs maintained the commissioners had \u201cserial communications, often referred to as \u2018daisy chains,\u2019\u201d to reach consensus on the op-ed. This is a method for skirting open meetings laws by individual members contacting one and then another and another outside of a public meeting to discuss a matter privately.<\/p>\n

Colorado\u2019s open-meetings law requires any meeting between two or more public officials<\/a> where public business is discussed to be open to the public after notice of such a meeting is provided. The law\u2019s purpose is to promote open and informed discussions, which leads to better decision making.<\/p>\n

Beaulieu and Murphy said in opening remarks at the Nov. 14 commissioners meeting<\/a> in Lamar that they had no part in writing the op-ed.<\/p>\n

They said it was written by a third-party and they merely signed off on it<\/a>, separately and without ever communicating with one another.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt no point did I communicate with commissioner Murphy about writing the op-ed or pending commission business, including the East Slope Mountain Lion Plan,\u201d Beaulieu said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no collusion. We simply signed off on a letter. We did not talk about it at all. Not one single word was written by either one of us,\u201d Murphy added.<\/p>\n

A third party wrote the letter<\/div>\n

Ellen Stein, opinion editor at the Herald<\/em>, later confirmed to The Colorado Sun the op-ed had come from Julie Marshall, public relations director for Animal Wellness Action<\/a>, the group behind Proposition 127.<\/p>\n

Marshall in a Dec. 13 email to The Sun said it was the result of \u201cthe science, data from our expert team, and writing chops from the campaign\u201d along with \u201cexpert and wise\u201d editing from former commissioner Jim Pribyl, \u201cwho made it better and steered it toward what was needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duncan, the CPW spokesperson, had said commissioners didn\u2019t violate open-meetings laws for multiple reasons: \u201cThe Commission has developed its own procedures which help the Commission in its rulemaking and processes. As the Commissioners were speaking as private citizens, this subject was not before the Commission as an item of business and no open meeting law violation occurred.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the hunting groups say they sued \u201cto hold the commissioners accountable\u201d for violating the law and for \u201cmaking blatantly false statements about state hunting regulations in a failed attempt to persuade voters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CPW
CPW staff work to obtain measurements, health assessments and place GPS collars on mountain lions during the agency\u2019s Western Slope Mountain Lion Density Study. (Courtesy of Colorado Parks and Wildlife)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The errors they say Beaulieu and Murphy made included that lion hunters can use drones, which is prohibited by the commission\u2019s own regulations; that mountain lion hunts guarantee \u201csuccess at 100%,\u201d when the success rate is closer to 20%; and that wild cats are \u201cnot involved in any human conflict,\u201d when CPW has shown mountain lions and humans are interacting more than ever<\/a> on the Front Range and numerous other press releases show this<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In an email to The Sun following news that the groups were suing, Dan Gates, executive director of Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management<\/a>, said his group hopes \u201call appointed individuals adhere to the requirements of public process and procedures and protocols\u201d because \u201cwhile having a personal opinion is one thing, how one conveys or represents that opinion or how it was worked on with others, might be another matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Marshall said the commissioners \u201cwere right and behaved properly in independently speaking out about a measure to stop trophy hunting of lions and bobcats,\u201d and that they shouldn\u2019t have settled out of court.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe trophy-hunting clan cannot stomach the idea of any challenge to its worldview, especially not from commissioners,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is a classic intimidation tactic, and the state had no business reaching an agreement with parties who want to chill debate and promote inhumane, unsportsmanlike treatment of wildlife.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sportsmen\u2019s Alliance Foundation did not respond to a request for comment but said in the press release that \u201cCPW made the correct decision to settle instead of dragging this out and wasting time and resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, journalist-owned news outlet exploring issues of statewide interest. Sign up for a newsletter and read more at coloradosun.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lawsuit claimed Colorado Parks and Wildlife commissioners talked in secret to spread \u2018falsehoods\u2019 through an op-ed opposing mountain lion hunting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1031,28,1509,603],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-parks-and-wildlife","tag-headlines","tag-state-elections","tag-wildlife"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22609"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77784,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22609\/revisions\/77784"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22609"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}