Change in licensing requirements provides nearly $16 million difference
Thanks to a change in how Colorado Parks & Wildlife (CPW) handled licensing requirements this year, the agency increased its revenue by nearly $16 million in 2019. That’s a 20% increase since the previous fiscal year. In fact, according to The Denver Post, the total license sales for 2018-19 were $96,269,926 – up from the previous total of $80,499,026.
What was the change? Well, beginning last year, those who applied for big game licenses had to first purchase qualifying licenses. Those included small game hunting licenses, spring turkey licenses, resident combo licenses for small game hunting and fishing or a veteran’s lifetime combo license for residents, according to The Denver Post.
“Those work as a qualifying license in order for you to apply for big game hunt,” said Jason Clay, a public information officer for CPW. “The vast majority of that $16-million increase is from that. You could purchase your qualifying license at the same time as you’re applying (for a big game license), but you could not apply without having that in the queue or having done so previously.”
Interested in Colorado’s 2019 season breakdown? Here’s a few numbers from CPW:
Big game license applications: 978,668
Big game licenses sold: 361,089
Elk licenses sold: 215,351
Elk, deer, pronghorn and bear licenses sold to nonresidents: 102,444
Resident combination (small game and fishing) licenses: 110,511
Chances of having your name drawn in the lottery for a Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep license: less than 1% (34,724 applied, 299 awarded)
Chances of having your name drawn in the lottery for a moose license: less than 1% (52,217 applied, 505 awarded)
Chances of having your name drawn in the lottery for a mountain goat license: less than 1% (25,023 applied, 236 awarded)
Acres of public land available for hunting: 23 million
CPW game management units: 185
