Hunters in Colorado recently won a legal victory in a
dispute over expanding a state prison. The hunters and their
environmental allies challenged Colorado’s use of state park land
in Rifle for the prison, charging that money collected from
fishermen and hunters through taxes on guns and other equipment had
purchased the land. The federal Pittman-Robertson Act of 1937
requires that the land remain dedicated to wildlife, the plaintiffs
said.
In a preliminary hearing, Federal District
Court Judge Lewis Babcock, sitting in Denver, ruled that the
plaintiffs had the right to bring the case against state wildlife
and prison officials, as well as against Colorado Gov. Roy
Romer.
If the judge’s opinion sets a precedent,
it would let citizens across the country challenge how
Pittman-Robertson and state license funds are used, says Tom
Huerkamp, spokesman for the Sportsmen’s Wildlife Defense Fund in
Delta, Colo., one of the plaintiffs. Huerkamp is also on the board
of High Country News.
Huerkamp says abuse of
wildlife funds is widespread. “We’ve heard from people all over the
country. If the tax money we hunters fork over every year were used
properly, there’s more than enough to buy all the habitat we need.”
The lawsuit is numbered Civil Case No.
96-B-1637, U.S. District Court, District of
Colorado.
* Ed
Marston
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Hunters get standing.
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