Travis Thompson The Lock on the Door.

IOTR takes its name — and its standard — from Theodore Roosevelt, who pioneered the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation: hunting is conservation, hunters sustain wild places, and future generations deserve what past generations entrusted to our care. Its motto comes from Roosevelt's most famous speech — stand in the arena — the same line Thompson keeps on his office wall. Learn more at t-roosevelt.org.

This interview was recorded the same day the campaign delivered its petitions to the Secretary of State's office in Denver — more than 180,000 signatures, per IOTR's announcement, far exceeding the requirement. Thompson was in the room, alongside Colorado advocates like Dan Gates.

The effort moved faster than expected — volunteers finished Gunnison in days, and people were still calling to sign after collection wrapped. The job now is converting it into votes.

The most common attack fixates on the phrase "traditional methods" — opponents claim it's a secret plan to bring back trapping, snares, or poisons. Thompson's answer starts with how rights work: every right carries time, place, and manner restrictions. Free speech doesn't let you scream "fire" in a theater; a right to fish and hunt doesn't erase seasons, licenses, bag limits, or the state's rule-making authority. Science-driven wildlife management is spelled out in the amendment itself. And under in pari materia, provisions on the same subject are read together, not in contradiction — to undo Colorado's trapping restrictions, the amendment would have to say so expressly. It doesn't. Florida's constitutional net ban is the proof case: untouched, by design.

As for the trespassing scare, Thompson called other right-to-hunt-and-fish states and asked for trespass cases before and after passage. The only hard answer he got: eight before, four after. "It went down." The Colorado measure addresses trespass and property law directly, the state's fiscal analysis projects no effect on revenue or spending — and two years after Florida passed, the predicted parade of horribles, dynamite fishing included, has simply not materialized.

To the argument that the right is unnecessary, Thompson responds with what's happened in Florida since passage. The bear hunt: for the first time in a decade, Florida's commission voted to hold one — the state had over 4,000 bears and no hunt. When anti-hunting groups sued, IOTR and Safari Club filed in response citing Amendment 2: restricting a hunt now requires a scientific reason, not emotion. Shark fishing on Marco Island: when a city council moved to ban it, one father who fishes with his son invoked the constitutional right — and the state wildlife agency confirmed the ban would be unconstitutional. The proposal died.

Thompson's point isn't that attacks are hypothetical — Colorado just lived through Proposition 127, and Oregon's IP28 went from "never gonna make the ballot" to making it. It's that those attacks land in states where the constitutional right doesn't exist. "This is not a red-blue issue. It's a radical environmentalist position. They're noisy, they're well-funded, they're orchestrated."

The principle Thompson keeps returning to: a right cannot exist in the abstract. You can't guarantee a right to fish and hunt while eradicating the places it happens — which is why non-hunters have a direct stake. His favorite example is a bird he'll never hunt: the snail kite, an endangered raptor he watches from Florida duck blinds, thriving in marshes that exist because hunters and anglers advocate for them. "I don't know who your birds are in Colorado, but I guarantee you the places you go to watch them are the same places you hunt mule deer."

Conservation — the proper use of a natural resource, funded for nearly a century by hunters through Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson excise taxes — is not preservation, which he jokes "is for delicious jams and jellies." What he's actually protecting is the moment a kid watches a teal work the decoys and gets hooked for life — like the ten-year-old first-timer who cried over his first duck, refused to have it mounted, and cooked it for his mom instead. "Kids 150 years from now are going to be able to hunt and fish in Colorado because of what happens this year. They won't know our names. I can't think of anything better than that."

The sporting community's biggest weakness is turnout — Thompson has watched critical Florida issues decided with six people in the room. The counterexample started his advocacy career: 35 duck hunters rented a bus to a commission meeting, and commissioners pulled the item off the agenda. And showing up isn't just meetings — it's carrying the measure beyond the hunting community: "I don't need you to tell other hunters about this. I need you to tell your Sunday school teacher. Your kid's PE teacher. The bank teller. The cashier at King Soopers." Sportsmen have spent decades reacting to attacks. This measure is the rare chance to be proactive.

• 1777 — Vermont

  Vermont writes the right to hunt and fish into its constitution — the first in the nation.

• 2023 — Florida Says Go

  A legislator calls Thompson about a constitutional right to fish and hunt. IOTR brings the resources; Thompson brings the grassroots.

• November 2024 — Amendment 2 Passes

  Florida votes 67.4% yes — past a 60%-plus-one threshold — becoming the 24th right-to-fish-and-hunt state.

• 2024–2026 — The Receipts

  Amendment 2 helps restore Florida's first bear hunt in a decade and kills a municipal shark fishing ban. Two wins in 18 months.

• July 2026 — Signatures Delivered

  More than 180,000 petition signatures arrive at the Colorado Secretary of State's office, per IOTR. Colorado is on track for November.

• November 2026 — Colorado Decides

  All-mail ballots go out statewide. Thompson's target: beat Florida's 67.4%.

Thompson closed the way he opened — like a competitor. The measure needs 1.2 million hunters and anglers, plus everyone who loves wild Colorado, to show up in November. His benchmark is on the record: beat Florida's 67.4%.

Pyrost conducted this interview as part of its ongoing coverage of Colorado's right-to-hunt-and-fish ballot measure. Figures and claims in this article reflect the guest's statements in the interview and have not all been independently verified.