From gun control to wolves and wild bison: Here’s how 9 bills from the 2025 legislative session will impact Colorado Parks and Wildlife
The state wildlife agency is tasked with implementing new legislation — some it asked for and some it did not
Colorado Parks and Wildlife/Courtesy Photo
Over 120 days, Colorado lawmakers introduced over 650 bills in the 2025 legislative session.
Among those that passed were several that will have implications for Colorado Parks and Wildlife as it tackles illegal wildlife traffic, manages hunting and sport shooting activities, continues the voter-mandated reintroduction of gray wolves and more.
Senate Bill 2: How Colorado’s gun control bill will affect Parks and Wildlife
One of the major bills this legislative session was a gun control bill measure that requires new training and background checks before individuals can purchase semi-automatic guns that accept detachable magazines. Parks and Wildlife will play a role in the legislation’s rollout.
“Much like anything else, if there’s a law passed, it’s our responsibility to carry it out, regardless of our politics or personal feelings,” said Ty Petersberg, the chief law enforcement officer for the wildlife agency, at the May commissioner meeting.
The bill was not sponsored by the Colorado Department of Natural Resources or Parks and Wildlife, Petersberg noted at the meeting. But the agencies were involved since its inception in advocating for hunters and sports shooters, he added.
Support Local Journalism
“The responsibility that will fall on CPW is to maintain a database relative to the program and the requirements to be able to purchase some of these firearms,” he said. “We’re going to be working hand-in-hand with the sheriff’s offices across the state to implement the program.”
While the new state training will not fall on Parks and Wildlife staff, the agency is expected to be involved in overseeing what the program and protocol look like, he said.
It will also have implications for the agency’s hunter education programming.
Join the 17,000 readers who get the news from us daily.
Sign up for daily or weekly newsletters at VailDaily.com/newsletter
“The gist of it is if you have a verified hunter education certificate, then your requirement is a four-hour additional class to purchase these firearms. If you don’t, then it’s a 12-hour class,” he said.
The new rules will go into effect in August 2026.
“We have a grand total of 14 months to get this in place, so it’ll be pretty intense,” Petersberg said.
Senate Bill 38: Protecting personal information in wildlife damage claims
Signed into law in March, this bill allows for ranchers’ names, addresses and businesses to remain confidential on documents requesting compensation for damage caused by wildlife or on-site assessments documents that recommend site-specific, nonlethal conflict mitigation techniques. The bill comes amid the state’s reintroduction of gray wolves. Proponents of the bill argued that this would help producers seek compensation without fear of retribution.
Senate Bill 49: Making the habitat stamp program permanent
Since 2006, the Colorado Wildlife Habitat Stamp Program within Parks and Wildlife has invested over $212.6 million to preserve wildlife habitat and ensure recreational access. The legislature reauthorized the program in 2009 and again in 2013. This 2025 bill permanently authorizes the program, which was a priority of Parks and Wildlife in this legislative session.
The program is funded through sales of the habitat stamp, which individuals must purchase when buying a hunting or fishing license or State Wildlife Area Pass. Individuals can also voluntarily purchase the stamps.
It works like a grant program where landowners can apply for funding to either voluntarily protect habitat and riparian areas, create connectivity between conserved land, ensure public access for hunting, fishing and wildlife viewing. Landowners can also sell property to Parks and Wildlife through the program.
Since its inception, the state agency has used the funding to secure conservation easements on 300,650 acres, grant public access via easements on 156,100 acres, acquire 34,950 acres for Parks and Wildlife, and ensure river bank access along 393 miles of river bank.
Senate Bill 53: Reclassifying bison as both wildlife and livestock
This bill will allow bison in Colorado to be classified as both wildlife and livestock, offering protections to wild herds that migrate into the state.
It was one of three recommended to the General Assembly by a new legislative committee tasked with addressing issues in Native communities. Tribal advocates said the bill was a way to rectify the wrongs done to an animal of cultural significance to their communities.
Currently, bison are considered livestock or domestic animals in Colorado. The last of the state’s wild bison were killed in South Park in 1897, part of the systematic slaughter of the animals across the West in the 1800s.
While the bill does not set forth a plan to reintroduce wild bison in Colorado, it aims to protect those that find their way to the state.
“Over the past decade, a few bison from the Utah Book Cliffs wild herd have crossed over Utah state lines into Colorado near Rangely,” said Travis Duncan, Parks and Wildlife’s public information officer.
Utah has both wild and domestic herds of bison. Previously, when these wild bison entered Colorado, they lost their protections as Parks and Wildlife had no authority to manage the animals because they were not classified as wildlife in Colorado.
In the last 10 years, the agency has been aware of around 12 wild bison that have been hunted in Colorado after leaving Utah, Ducan added.
According to Jeff Davis, the director of Parks and Wildlife, to implement the bill, the agency will initiate a rulemaking process and “start developing a herd management plan for bison in northwest Colorado where the wild bison from Utah have immigrated into Colorado over the past.”
Senate Bill 168: Prevention of wildlife trafficking
One of Parks and Wildlife’s statutory responsibilities is to enforce the illegal possession and sale of wildlife, also referred to as wildlife trafficking. To date, the agency has lacked the “staff capacity to effectively and holistically address this issue,” and current penalties and fines have proven inadequate to address the illegal activity, according to Duncan.
It’s an issue that has “gone under the radar for a really long time,” Davis said.
“This illicit activity poses real threats to Colorado’s native species and local ecosystems and is often linked to other serious criminal activities like drug and human trafficking,” he added.
Duncan reported that Parks and Wildlife staffers have been involved in poaching and trafficking cases involving bear gallbladders, amphibians and reptiles, fish, eagles, crayfish, and more. This includes cases involving a Geoffrey’s Cat (an endangered wild cat native to parts of South America), big cats, and venomous snakes from around the world.
The bill — which was a priority for the Colorado Department of Natural Resources and Colorado Parks and Wildlife this session — will grant the wildlife agency additional enforcement and management tools as well as add criminal penalties and increase fines to curb these activities. It will also initiate research and data collection to better understand the challenge at hand.
Senate Bill 206: Budget includes direction for CPW on wolves
When Gov. Jared Polis signed the state’s 2025 budget into law in April, it included $2.1 million for Parks and Wildlife to allocate toward its wolf reintroduction program and a caveat for how it wants the agency to use these funds.
The final budget included a footnote from lawmakers directing the agency not to use the money to bring more wolves to Colorado “unless and until” preventative measures “are implemented to the highest degree possible to assist owners of livestock in preventing and resolving conflicts between gray wolves and livestock.”
In March, Sen. Dylan Roberts, a Frisco Democrat who helped write the footnote, told Vail Daily that the footnote sends a clear message to the agency.
“When we come back to our budget next year, if those things in the footnote were not honored, then we’re going to be having a much tougher conversation about whether you deserve funding going forward,” Roberts said.
The budget also included money to increase state parks funding, improve infrastructure and facilities on state wildlife areas, increase capacity for water administration and increase access to the outdoors with new dollars for Parks and Wildlife’s Outdoor Equity Grant program.
House Bill 1163: Granting free state park access to Colorado Ute tribes
This bill will allow all Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute tribal members free access to Colorado’s 43 state parks.
In a news release, the state Department of Natural Resources referred to the bill as a “first step in advancing a reparative action” between the state and tribes after their homelands were severely restricted to reservation lands.
The free entry applies only to these two tribes, which are the only federally recognized tribes within the state. During the legislative process, pushback came from other tribal nations who wanted the free entry to be extended to all tribes that were displaced from what is now the state of Colorado.
Parks and Wildlife and the Department of Natural Resources committed to finding ways to increase access to all tribal members in the future, a directive that was memorialized in an amendment to the bill.
“There’s other tribal members in the state that have some histories that we need to pay attention to and take care of,” Davis said. “So DNR and CPW will continue further consultation with tribal nations to implement the bill, including outreach and engagement with the greater American Indian and indigenous communities as we move forward.”
Duncan said that the agency has had and will continue to have conversations on all state park issues of importance, including those in the bill.
“More immediate next steps include various community listening sessions to be held in different parts of the state to support the advancement of a holistic dialogue surrounding state park matters, including entry fees,” he said, adding that this will be a “tribally-led process with community issues centered.”
House Bill 1318: Species Conservation Trust Fund projects
The state created a Species Conservation Trust Fund in 1998, allowing the General Assembly to allocate funding toward research, study, and recovery programs dedicated to native species that are, or are likely to become, state or federally threatened or endangered.
The 2025 bill allocated $5 million to four conservation project areas: the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program, native terrestrial wildlife conservation, selenium management, research, evaluation and control, and native aquatic wildlife conservation.
House Bill 1332: Uncovering how state trust lands can be used for conservation, recreation
The Colorado State Land Board oversees over 2.8 million acres of land in the state, including state parks. This bill requires the state Department of Natural Resources and Parks and Wildlife to form a work group and make recommendations to the land board, governor, general assembly and state agencies.
The work group will be tasked with finding opportunities for long-term management solutions for parks and wildlife areas leased or utilized by the state wildlife agency, climate-resilient conservation and recreation opportunities, high-priority habitats and habitat for species of greatest conservation needs, challenges and opportunities associated with recreational access, and more.
The group is required to include participation from Parks and Wildlife as well as from Colorado’s Ute Mountain Ute and Southern Ute Tribes, rural schools, renewable energy organizations, and other stakeholders.
