Denver voters rejected two ballot measures seeking to prohibit slaughterhouses and fur products in the city. So far, more than 64 percent of ballots counted are against the slaughterhouse ban, Ordinance 309, according to Denver's unofficial election results from November 5. The fur ban, Ordinance 308, is losing, with 58 percent of votes in opposition.
"Denver has chosen to protect jobs, heritage, and personal choice," says Landon Gates, spokesperson for the opposition campaign against Ordinance 308. "[Voters are] allowing our residents to continue enjoying the products they love and our city’s iconic Western culture.”
The election results conclude a long and messy road to the ballot box. For the slaughterhouse ban alone, the campaign featured accusations of campaign finance violations, fines from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and even a satirical dog-eating billboard.
If passed, Ordinance 309 would have shut down Superior Farms, the only slaughterhouse in Denver and the largest lamb-packing plant in the country. Ordinance 308 would have prohibited the manufacture, distribution, display, sale and trade of most new animal fur products in Denver.
Proponents of the Denver initiatives said they were intended to prevent animal cruelty and shift the fashion and livestock industries away from "inhumane" practices. Critics argued that the bans would have hurt local businesses that rely on the animal products and devastated Colorado's agricultural industry.
“Activists from New Orleans and California used dark money from out of state to try and shut down this local company, but they lost to Colorado workers, farmers, ranchers, and restaurateurs,” says Ian Silverii, spokesperson for the opposition campaign to Ordinance 309. “We have one message for those who tried to come to our city and our state to run their experiment to upend the lives of so many hardworking people: It was a baaaaaaaad idea.”
Advocates attribute the ordinances' failures to industry spending. The anti-slaughterhouse ban campaign raised over $2.4 million, with its top donors including the Meat Institute and Superior Farms, according to Denver's campaign finance website. That's compared to just under $340,000 raised by the support campaign. For the fur ban, proponents raised around $358,000, while opponents raised $729,000.
Despite losing at the ballot box, the animal activists say they're encouraged by the public reception to the measures.
"We’re in this for the long haul," says Olivia Hammond, spokesperson for Pro-Animal Future, the animal rights organization that petitioned Ordinances 308 and 309 onto the ballot. "These campaigns have signaled that animal rights are not a fringe concern, but a mainstream issue that resonates deeply with a significant number of people. ... And while we would have loved to see [the measures] all pass, we're feeling far from discouraged.
"We'll be back, and we'll be stronger," she adds.
Organizers behind 308 and 309 intend to bring the issues to voters again in the future: "Legalizing cannabis took thirty years from the first time it appeared on the ballot," says Aidan Kankyoku with Pro-Animal Future. "We're prepared for a long fight."
Proposed Mountain Lion Hunting Ban
Animal advocates took another loss statewide: Voters also shot down Proposition 127, an effort to prohibit the hunting of mountain lions, bobcats and lynx. Prop 127 is down with over 55 percent of voters in opposition, according to early results from the Colorado Secretary of State's Office as of November 7.Rather than planning to return to the ballot, the group behind Proposition 127 is taking a different lesson from their measure's defeat.
They say the election results show that voters want Colorado Parks and Wildlife to address big cat hunting instead of implementing reform via a ballot measure, pointing to a Colorado State University study that found that 88.2 percent of residents disapprove of hunting mountain lions with dogs.
"Voters most definitely did not affirm vicious and highly commercialized forms of trophy hunting and commercial trapping of our native cats by narrowly rejecting Prop 127,” says Sam Miller, campaign director for Cats Aren’t Trophies. "The vote was anything but a mandate on baiting trapping and hounding — it was a vote of deference to the agency to take action itself.”
If passed, Prop 127 would have made hunting mountain lions, bobcats and lynx a Class 1 misdemeanor, only allowing the animals to be killed if they threaten human life, livestock or property.
Opponents feared the ban would disrupt wildlife management practices that rely on limited hunter harvest. The anti-Prop 127 campaign, Colorado Wildlife Deserves Better, is celebrating the measure's defeat as an "endorsement of expert-driven, science-based wildlife management."
"This result reflects the voices of those who recognize the importance of letting wildlife experts, not the ballot box, guide decisions on the conservation of Colorado's big cats," says Dan Gates, chair of Colorado Wildlife Deserves Better. "By rejecting this misguided initiative, voters have ensured that our state's ecosystem can continue to thrive under the careful stewardship of Colorado Parks and Wildlife.”
Still, advocates are determined to keep their heads held high.
Andrea Davis, director of the Broken Shovels Farm Sanctuary which backed all three of the ballot measures, says she's disappointed in the election results but doesn't consider them "absolute losses." The grassroots campaigns held their own against massive industries, she says, and there's more progress to be made.
"We’ve been working to change public perception of the sentience and worthiness of traditionally non-pet animals for the past thirteen years," Davis says. "We have a lot more work to do."
