Salida Gunshop Podcast // Clip // Amendment 83 // Ballot Language

Why Amendment 83 Says "Traditional Methods": Colorado Wildlife Rules vs. VR Drones

Holding up the free Colorado Parks and Wildlife brochure, Katie Surber explains how two words in Amendment 83 guard against futuristic tech abuses while keeping existing wildlife bans intact.

Watch the 48-second Short // Watch full episode context at 30:02

Colorado’s proposed Amendment 83 is only three paragraphs long, yet one phrase in the ballot text gets debated more than any other: the right to hunt, fish, and harvest wildlife using “traditional methods” BLUE BOOK. Why did the authors include those two words, and what do they actually do in practice? In this 48-second clip from the Salida Gunshop Podcast, Salida clinical herbalist and hunter Katie Surber, daughter of retired 35-year CPW Area Wildlife Manager Jim Aragon, holds up a free copy of the Colorado Parks and Wildlife regulations brochure to show how the language works.

What’s said in the clip

“Traditional methods, some of those are not things that I want to see happen to an animal ever. I don’t want to run woolly mammoths off a cliff. However, we can never argue that AI was a traditional method. Drones. Should, in the future, should somebody be allowed to say, ‘I can use a long-range acoustic device to herd elk to one specific location’? You worry about out-of-state hunters. Can somebody sit on their couch in New York City with a VR headset and navigate a weapons-enabled drone to a Colorado mountainside and ask a guide to pick it up for them? What’s the future? Where do you draw the line? This is about the future.”

Katie Surber SHORT FULL VIDEO 30:20

Holding up the printed CPW brochure, Katie points to what the phrase means right now: “By traditional methods, they’re saying the legal methods of take. That’s why I brought this. These are for free. Anybody can look up the legal methods of take. It’s clearly defined. And they care what’s ethical, what’s sustainable, what’s safe” FULL VIDEO 31:14.

What “traditional methods” means in Colorado law

Critics sometimes talk about the phrase “traditional methods” as if it floats in isolation and erases the rest of the rulebook. As our host notes in the full segment, the phrase sits right alongside “sound scientific management” and explicit state regulatory authority FULL VIDEO 31:38.

Under Colorado’s nonpartisan Blue Book analysis and CPW’s current regulations, here is how those guardrails work together:

• It protects today’s fair-chase methods: Legal methods of take defined by Colorado Parks and Wildlife include archery, rifles, shotguns, muzzleloaders, handguns, falconry, and rod-and-reel fishing CPW RULES.
• It blocks futuristic remote-hunting abuses: Nobody can claim a constitutional right to use AI targeting, long-range acoustic herding devices, or a VR-piloted drone from a couch in New York City, because none of those are traditional methods.
• It does not repeal existing bans or regulations: The nonpartisan Blue Book confirms that Amendment 83 makes “no immediate change to existing state law or regulations” BLUE BOOK. It does not reverse prior constitutional or statutory bans on leghold traps, poison, baiting, or spring bear hunting, and CPW keeps its full power to set seasons, bag limits, and safety rules.

More fact-checks on Amendment 83

If you have heard other viral claims about the measure, read our Amendment 83 machine gun fact-check, our breakdown of 8 common claims on the Right to Hunt and Fish, and our conversation with Dan Gates on Amendment 83. Watch the full episode with Katie Surber in If You’re Pro-Science and Anti-Hunting: Salida Herbalist Katie Surber on Amendment 83, Food & Hormones.

How to vote

• Amendment 83 needs 55% of the vote to pass BLUE BOOK.
• Mail ballots must be received by 7:00 PM MT on Tuesday, Nov 3, 2026.
• Find an official drop box or voter center at GoVoteColorado.gov.

Quotes are from the episode; timestamps link to the Short and the full conversation. Legal analysis summarized from the Colorado Legislative Council Staff 2026 State Ballot Information Booklet (Blue Book) and Colorado Parks and Wildlife regulations. Transparency note: Katie Surber owns Copper Kettle Apothecary, a neighbor in the same building as Salida Gunshop on West First Street in Salida.