Opinion: Colorado Turned Her Back on Animals This Election

Colorado turned her back on animals this election. It’s a horrible thing to realize, and we’re deeply confused and upset. Colorado is supposed to be one of the most animal-friendly states in the country, but now we have our doubts.

Three ballot initiatives that would have brought some dignity and compassion to animals failed drastically. In Denver, Initiated Ordinance 308 would have banned the sale of new fur within county limits, and Initiated Ordinance 309 would have shut down Superior Farms, the last remaining lamb slaughterhouse in the city. Statewide, Proposition 127, which would have banned trophy hunting and trapping of bobcats and mountain lions, also failed miserably.

What does it feel like to be on the losing end of a campaign? Awful. Depressing, at best. Personally, I spent an insane number of hours on all three campaigns and a lot of money to keep them going, because the opposition outspent us considerably. But we never gave up, and we lifted each other up during challenging times. I am so proud of the fights we fought and the knowledge we shared, and I’m prouder still of the hundreds of fellow volunteers who saw this through to the bitter end.

We started out with zero supporters, and we turned that into more than a million at the polls. We brought an awareness to the public that won’t easily be forgotten. Superior Farms was happy being invisible until we came along. We’ve educated the public about trophy hunting and trapping. So many didn’t even know such atrocities existed in Colorado. And we made people think about the cowboy hat they were looking at during the Stock Show.

Why did we do it? In the words of John F. Kennedy, “We choose to go to the moon…and do other things, not because they are easy, but because they’re hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.” We’ve learned a lot about campaigns during this trial and error, and we can’t wait to try again.

That means we're not going away anytime soon.

Ellen Kessler lives in Littleton; she wrote about her work on Prop 127 here.

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