So, we often wonder, as we watch our progressive and socialist fellows spin ever more out of control, what's next in their quest for 'control' and the funding to see their fever dreams enacted.
Taxes on breathing, perhaps?
Ha ha!
We laugh and go on our rational way, safe in the knowledge that we're not there yet and that, well...okay, yet.
Because guess what, gentle readers - we are getting close.
A dear, enormously multitalented friend is an avid amateur photographer whose Facebook posts are often just glorious celebrations of the beauty around his Colorado home. And he sometimes, because we all urge him to, either sells especially wondrous prints or puts them together in a calendar form that we all love. I don't even know if he makes enough to cover printing the calendar. I get the act of love that goes into creating a compilation of your work and how agonizing it is to have to choose which twelve of so many phenomenal shots - and your memories - form a year.
I totally get it.
How many of us are like that with passions we pursue and enjoy, and it's such a privilege to have other people think something you produced is worthy enough to want to purchase it.
Naturally, the state takes its chunk when you do sell, and that's how it goes, whether it's at a show, a gallery or online - whatever. They don't care whether you're a hobbyist or pro.
That sale made it business, and I get that, too.
What stopped me dead in my tracks, reading his post, is what a petitioner in Colorado is now proposing the state of Colorado do.
I found photographers, pro and amateur alike, going berserk on X.
There’s a Colorado citizen petition proposing charging photographers and artists for the right to sell wildlife photographs. Insane!
— Richard Bernabe (@bernabephoto) September 14, 2026
Mr. Bernabe is correct.
It's really gobsmacking - only word for it.
Wowsahs. It doesn't matter where or how you intended to take pictures. You'd have to pay a 'wildlife fee' to have your camera out.
...⚖️ Proposed Scope
The permit would apply statewide and would cover wildlife images regardless of whether they were created on:
* CPW-managed property,
* Other public lands, or
* Private property.
✍️ Public Comment Consideration!!!
The petition requests that the CPW Commission schedule a rule-making hearing and allow public comment regarding the proposed permit’s scope, fees, and implementation."
I already sent them my comment and if this affects you, you should, too. If you're a small business owner, photographer, sell wildlife prints, or even just post to social media as a monetized account and you're just traveling through Colorado and post pictures of Colorado wildlife, this will affect you.
I am enraged by this money grab. I tried searching for this person, Patt Dorsey, and a couple names popped up, however, if it's the one I think it is, she is the Director of Conservation Operations, Mountain West at The National Wild Turkey Federation for Colorado's chapter. Nationally, they're worth $60 MILLION. How many states have turkeys??? In a recent report for Colorado's chapter, they boasted about how well they are doing financially, but it simply ISN'T ENOUGH. So, they want more, of course. And shortly after that report was published, Patt Dorsey devised this evil plan to secure more funding because Colorado Parks and Wildlife has an ACTIVE partnership with Mountain West at The National Wild Turkey Federation.
This is a money grab. As a small business owner and photographer who already pays quarterly municipal, city, and state taxes... on top of the cost of doing business, i.e., gas milage, permit fees, entry fees to wildlife areas, parking fees, tax license fees, and whatever other costs it takes to plan a photography trip, I am honestly disgusted by this petition...
My friend asked with all sincerity, 'Well, why stop at wildlife? What about landscape?'
And what about all the taxes and entry fees photographers already pay for public lands, plus the permits for those special places you sometimes want to access?
Can pretty much guarantee every wildlife photographer in CO is already paying for the Keep Colorado Wild pass, a national parks pass, and all sorts of other fees to “contribute equitably” to public resources.
— Jason Orr (@jasonaorr) September 15, 2026
But hang on a cotton-pickin' minute.
Wildlife Photographer/Artist?
'PHOTOGRAPHS AND ARTISTIC DEPICTIONS'
The language also seems to apply to depictions of, say, deer on velvet or that ruffed grouse you shot and want to memorialize, so you paid the next-door neighbor's elderly mother with the Bob Ross certificate to paint a portrait.
Granny would need a permit, too.
What if a bird suddenly appears in the frame as you center your mountain landscape?
I'M NOT HERE TO SHOOT BIRDS!!!
I submitted a NO as well. I'm not a professional photographer, but as a birder/amateur naturalist, I take 1000s of photos, upload to eBird/iNaturalist, submit to contests, sell a few to family, etc. EVERYONE is a photographer now. We already buy park & SWA passes.
— Lorraine Lanning 🙂 🍖🍗🏕🦉🦅🦢🐦🦆 (@Common_SenseCO) August 2, 2026
'That's two separate permits you're violating, sir, and you can take it up with the judge when you bail out...'
Definitely infuriating. Comment NO when you have the time. But like many said, how will they even enforce this? It’s ridiculous.
— Kristin Mae Photography (@Kristin_Mae) August 1, 2026
Sometimes, all they need is the air that you breathe...
How can they decide that while in Colorado, I am shooting for that purpose? By the size of my lens? By the price of my camera? On the grounds that people who take photos with something other than their phone is a "professional?"
— Don Risi Photography (@donrisi) September 14, 2026
Any of those is discriminatory.
This also…
...This also begs the question: as a resident of another state, how are they going to enforce that? I shoot in Colorado, but come home to sell my images. Are they going to send me a bill?
This is but one of many reasons why we no longer travel through, much less to, Colorado.
So many questions and details that seem impossible to iron out.
It’s so much worse cause it’s just completely unenforceable, because it has no proposal for the image capture or depiction of wildlife…so go ahead and take all the photos and paint all the pictures you want. They just want you to have a license if you decide later to “sell” that…
— Tim LeVier (@tlevier) September 15, 2026
...They just want you to have a license if you decide later to “sell” that photo.
When did the sale take place?
Where did the sale take place?
How have we established the depicted animal is of Colorado and not of Wyoming, Utah, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona?
Does this apply to animals that are not of Colorado but are visiting Colorado?
It obviously does not apply to zoo animals as they are not “in the wild”.
…and then we have to look at it from a commerce perspective. Do you need a license the day you offer it for sale and for the full duration of the sale? Or do you just need the license at the time of the sale?
What a half-brained cockamamie suggestion by this “Patt Dorsey”
I'm sure it's going to make the petitioners even angrier that the natives are becoming restless over such a simple idea, and peppering them with 'what ifs.' Insane people aren't into details.
Pay the monies, peasants.
You didn't build a bear, nor do you have his permission to use his likeness, let alone profit from it.
Oh, yeah.
Breathe with caution because you never know what's next.
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