Colorado Parks and Wildlife to randomly survey 6,000 elk hunters about over-the-counter elk license regulations
Joey Livingston
DENVER - As Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) wraps up its review of the current Big Game Season Structure, staff are reaching out to hunters about current over-the-counter (OTC) elk license regulations. CPW will be emailing surveys to 6,000 elk hunters who received an elk license in Colorado in 2018 or 2022 to share their perspectives about issues such as whether or not to eliminate OTC elk licenses (currently unlimited in number for specific seasons), which has been a controversial issue for many years.
Following the Commission’s resident/nonresident license allocation rule, 75% of the sampled hunters will be residents and 25% will be nonresidents. To ensure that there is representation of perspectives based on hunting type, the survey will be sent to an equal number of archery and firearm elk hunters.
The survey will take place between November 2023 - January 2024. The results from this survey will be presented to the Parks and Wildlife Commission at its March 2024 meeting.
Survey respondents will be asked about their support or opposition to potential options for limiting OTC rifle and archery elk licenses. Hunters will also be asked about the influences impacting their responses and anticipated behavior changes based on various approaches to OTC limitation.
Additional Information
Visit our Big Game Season Structure Engage CPW webpage to read a detailed description of each OTC elk license limitation alternative currently under consideration and to find more information on the Big Game Season Structure process and ways to continue to be involved.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) is an enterprise agency, relying primarily on license sales, state parks fees and registration fees to support its operations, including: 43 state parks and more than 350 wildlife areas covering approximately 900,000 acres, management of fishing and hunting, wildlife watching, camping, motorized and non-motorized trails, boating and outdoor education. CPW's work contributes approximately $6 billion in total economic impact annually throughout Colorado.