The Colorado Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee rejected two of Gov. Jared Polis’s three appointments for the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission on Wednesday, April 22, amid concerns that the nominations would skew the citizen, volunteer board toward anti-hunting, extreme wildlife beliefs. 

Frances Silva Blayney, who co-owns a fly-fishing outfitter in Colorado Springs with her daughter, was unanimously approved by the committee. 

The senators, however, were split and ultimately against the appointments of John Emerick, a retired environmental biology professor who resides in Redstone, and Chris Sichko, a research economist who has worked with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and lives in Boulder.  

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The appointments will now face a full Senate vote. 

While his rationale for voting against Emerick and Sichko varied slightly, Sen. Dylan Roberts, D-Frisco, who chairs the committee, said both represented a continuation of the gubernatorial administration moving the commission in a specific direction. 

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“I’m worried about the future of the reputation of the CPW Commission if folks who continue to have a very specific point of view are being appointed by this governor, in what I think is a clear attempt to move the commission in a direction that is not within the mainstream of Colorado,” Roberts said. 

The committee’s votes against Sichko and Emerick follow criticism and concerns raised by various Colorado sportspersons and agriculture organizations about their appointments. A letter from the Colorado Wildlife Conservation Project — which includes 15 Colorado sportsperson organizations and several former Parks and Wildlife staff members and leaders — said the commission has tilted toward “extreme animal rights and anti-hunting agendas” pushed by the governor’s administration. 

The group claims that Emerick’s previous professional and personal activities demonstrate a bias toward certain anti-agriculture and anti-hunting efforts and that Sichko lacked the experience to adequately represent the hunting community on the board. 

“These appointments (to the Parks and Wildlife Commission made during the Polis administration) have contributed to the commission’s current dysfunction, which fails to best serve Colorado citizens and fish and wildlife populations managed in the public trust,” the letter reads. “We urge the committee and policymakers to advance appointments that fully meet statutory requirements, avoid conflicts of interest and rebuild trust with the diverse constituencies that depend on CPW.” 

How are CPW commissioners appointed? 

The Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission is a 13-person volunteer board tasked with guiding the state agency’s policies and regulations. 

Eleven of the commissioners are voting members — joining the Colorado agriculture commissioner and Colorado Department of Natural Resources executive director, who hold non-voting seats — who are appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the state Senate. 

State law requires that these 11 seats be filled by: 

• Three members who are sportspersons, one of whom must be a registered outfitter in the state, and who have held a Colorado hunting or fishing license for at least three years before appointment 
• Three agricultural producers who are “actively involved” in production agriculture as owners or lessees on an agricultural property and who have demonstrated knowledge of wildlife issues
• Three recreationalists, including one from a non-profit, non-consumptive wildlife organization, 
• Two members appointed from the public “at large”

At least four of these members must live west of the Continental Divide, and the commission must be balanced with regard to political affiliation.   

Silva Blayney was appointed to one of the three sportspersons’ seats, filling the one that must be held by an outfitter. She took over the seat from Marie Haskett, a third-generation hunting outfitter who termed out of the seat in June 2025. 

Emerick was appointed to one of the at-large seats, left open when Polis declined to re-appoint Karen Bailey, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder’s environmental studies program. 

Sichko was appointed to one of the sportsperson seats, taking over a vacancy left by the December resignation of Murphy Robinson, a long-time hunter who owns a security portfolio company and was the deputy mayor of Denver under Michael Hancock.

Due to the timing of their appointments, both Emerick and Silva Blayney have been serving on the commission since July 2025. Sichko has not because he was appointed during the legislative session. Sichko said he did attend the March meeting as a member of the public. 

Senators question conflicts of interest, qualifications

With Emerick and Sichko, concerns were raised about whether the appointees had conflicts of interest and adequate qualifications to represent the seats they were nominated for. 

On Wednesday, Roberts said he didn’t feel that Emerick was “qualified or prepared or suited to serve in the at-large position,” given his “history of very specific activism.” 

“At-large seats hold special responsibility to try to move the commission forward in recognizing that the state is very diverse, that the state has many points of view when it comes to wildlife management, when it comes to matters of managing our state parks and our state wildlife and everything that has gone on over the last few years,” Roberts said. “I am concerned, and have become more concerned after today’s hearing, that you are not prepared to represent the at-large point of view on the commission.”

Emerick said he was appointed for this specific seat because: “I’m not an agriculturalist, I’m not a hunter, but I certainly use our parks.” 

Emerick addressed concerns and was questioned by senators about his viewpoints and previous participation in several controversial wildlife-related matters. 

In his opening remarks, Emerick specifically addressed Colorado Wildlife Conservation Project’s letter. This included concerns about his past experience as the treasurer of Colorado Wild, a wolf advocacy organization that supported the ballot measure that spurred the state’s reintroduction effort, which Emerick said he only held for less than a year and immediately resigned from after his appointment. The other concern raised about Emerick is his partner, Delia Malone’s outspoken public advocacy at commission meetings for wolves, against mountain lion hunting and in support of the commercial fur sale ban on furbearers.

“We are not married. We do not file taxes together. We do not coordinate on our testimony or my votes,” he said. “I am a lifelong Republican. She’s a lifelong Democrat. She does not tell me how to vote. I do not tell her what to say. We are two independent professionals who share a background in ecology. And in more than 20 years together, we have not always agreed, but that’s worked out fine for us.”

Lawmakers questioned his involvement in wolf-related petitions — including a 2025 request for the wildlife agency to add more parameters for ranchers to receive compensation for loss of livestock — as well as his voting record as a private citizen and in his last five months on the wildlife commission. 

“At the time, I was looking at what I thought was the most defensible position with regard to what I knew about the science of the matters, and that’s how I think that’s all I can say at this point,” Emerick said. “I look at the facts before me, I look at the best available science and that’s how I based my judgments, my decisions.”

Emerick affirmed that he voted for Proposition 127, the failed measure to ban mountain lion, bobcat and lynx hunting in Colorado. He also defended his March vote as a commissioner in support of a potential ban on the sale of the furs of the 17 species Parks and Wildlife classifies as furbearers. The vote went against the recommendation of Parks and Wildlife staff. 

“Commissioners are not rubber stamps for staff recommendations,” he said. “We are an independent citizen board, and our obligation under the statute is to exercise independent judgment on behalf of all Coloradans.”

The senators voted 5-2 against Emerick’s appointment to the commission. 

Roberts said he felt Sichko would have been a better fit for the at-large seat. 

“I just don’t think we should have somebody filling the sportsman seat that has not garnered any support from the sportsman community and doesn’t have the experience to recognize CPW’s funding source from the sportsman community,” Roberts said. 

Colorado hunting and fishing license sales — as well as other passes and fees — make up over half (58%) of Parks and Wildlife’s annual revenue. It receives the most money from non-resident elk licenses, which brought in around $45 million last fiscal year, followed by fishing licenses, which brought in $25 million. 

Windi Padia, deputy director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, confirmed that the governor received 12 applications, including Sichko’s, that fulfilled the statutory requirements for the sportsperson’s seat. 

During his introduction, Sichko described himself as “a sportsman, agricultural economist, photographer and lifelong, multigenerational Colorado resident.” Sichko said his experience as a sportsperson is rooted in a long history of fishing and recent opportunities to small game bow hunt. 

The groups and individuals comprising Colorado Wildlife Conservation Project cited Sichko’s lack of participation in big game hunting as their main objection to his appointment. 

“Given the importance of big game hunting to CPW’s budget and to Colorado’s rural economies, and the lack of hunting representation on the commission, it is critical that this appointment brings that expertise for the benefit of staff, the sportsperson community, and the other commissioners who look to this position for guidance,” they wrote. 

Sichko referred to hunting as “important cultural traditions” that are central to Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s conservation work. In joining the commission, he said his main objective would be to rebuild trust with the sportsperson groups. 

“I have a son, and I would love to teach my son, nieces, nephews and the next generation how integral wildlife, ecosystems and habitat are to our existence, how precious and fleeting life is,” Sichko said. “I know of no better way to learn these things than through hunting and fishing.”

The senators voted 4-3 against his appointment to the commission.

Politicization of Colorado Parks and Wildlife  

Concerns about the politicization of Colorado Parks and Wildlife are not new. Over the last several years, Colorado Parks and Wildlife commission meetings have grown increasingly contentious as wolves and issues pertaining to furbearers bring forth questions of science, ethics, conservation and more. 

At her final meeting in June, the former commissioner Haskett said that her and Bailey’s senate appointments in 2021 were “the last non-contentious confirmation” and warned that “political agendas have taken over this agency.” 

In 2024, two of the three governor appointments drew similar controversy as Sichko and Emerick in the Senate. Gary Skiba, who withdrew before the Senate’s final vote, had been part of the group leading the wolf reintroduction ballot initiative. Jessica Beaulieu, who was ultimately appointed to the commission and still serves, drew concerns from lawmakers and hunting and recreation organizations over a lack of connection to the state’s parks and wildlife and connections to animal activist initiatives.

“My first appointment was from Gov. John Hickenlooper, and a lot of changes have been made — a tremendous amount — under this administration,” Haskett said. “Leadership used to be involved in picking commission appointments. Now they have no idea who has applied. We now have anti-hunters and not non-hunters on this commission. Agendas are set from the governor’s office, not staff.”