The Safari Club International and Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation filed the case Oct. 2 in Denver District Court. They want a judge to invalidate the limit, require the commission to provide notice and reconsider the rule, and award legal costs and other relief.

The dispute centers on a 6-5 commission vote July 16. The limit applies to mink, pine marten, badger, red and gray foxes, swift fox, western spotted skunk, striped skunk, beaver, muskrat, long-tailed and short-tailed weasels, bobcat, opossum, ring-tailed cat, raccoon and coyote.

The groups contend the commission’s public agenda presented different options: a daily total of 15 animals across furbearer species, or limits of eight animals for nine species and four for eight species. They say the commission did not provide advance notice that it might adopt the lower cap, leaving the public unable to comment on that proposal.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife staff had initially recommended a 15-animal limit in March. For the July meetings, staff returned with the species-specific options and said harvest estimates were conservative, sustainable and consistent with scientific literature, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit focuses in part on a survey presented by Commissioner Rebecca Niemiec during the July meeting, after public comment on the listed options had ended. Niemiec, an associate professor at Colorado State University, had published the survey the previous day. The suit says she moved to adopt the two-animal limit based on its results.

The plaintiffs argue the survey was not a sound basis for the decision. The complaint notes that respondents were paid through an online survey platform and that the sample was disproportionately younger, more female and more Democratic than Colorado’s population before statistical weighting. It also says Niemiec acknowledged the survey had not undergone peer review and that CPW staff had not seen it.

Sportsmen’s Alliance litigation counsel Michael Jean called the research rushed and biased, and argued the existing harvest levels were sustainable. Niemiec, as quoted in the complaint, acknowledged that the sample was smaller than she had hoped and had not been peer-reviewed because she had conducted it shortly before the meeting.

The lawsuit argues the process violated Colorado’s Administrative Procedure Act, which requires notice and an opportunity for meaningful public comment on proposed rule changes. The groups say the commission discussed the limits for months and spent more than four hours on them during the July meeting, but that discussion did not alert the public that a substantially lower limit was under consideration.

The organizations had warned the commission in August that they believed the vote violated the law. The commission discussed the matter in a closed-door session and made no public statement afterward, according to the lawsuit. Colorado Parks and Wildlife said it does not comment on pending litigation.

The case, Safari Club International and Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation v. Colorado Parks & Wildlife, is docketed as 2026CV33567. The court has not ruled on the groups’ claims.