Wild animals can’t vote. Here’s where they’re on the ballot anyway.
A male Northern Bobwhite Quail forages for seeds on the ground in south Texas. | Jon G. Fuller/VWPics/Universial Images Group via Getty When millions of voters fill out their ballots in November, they won’t just be choosing elected representatives. Many states are offering the chance to impact conservation and wildlife as well, through ballot measures focused on things like dedicating more money to habitat protection or mitigating the impacts of climate change. One could even reshape wildlife management in one of the country’s most picturesque mountain states — and also lead to the indiscriminate deaths of all kinds of wild animals. And while ballot measures might seem like small potatoes in the grand scheme of electoral politics, they could have an outsized impact this year. The Trump administration has been systematically rolling back protections for endangered species, taking a hammer to longstanding pillars of climate regulation, and cutting funding to agencies like the National Park Service and National Forest Service, both of which oversee vast stretches of wildlife habitats. In many cases, states have had to step up, putting more resources into conserving the habitats and species within their borders, and ballot measures can help shape those decisions. Here are the seven ballot measures...
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