Dear friend,

In Colorado, we are working hard to educate voters about deeply ingrained, ruthless policies related to native wild cats and to urge voters there to sweep these archaic practices into the dustbin of history.

Shooting 500 mountain lions in Colorado during four-month season to start in late November — including hundreds of mother cats with dependent kittens — is disgraceful.

The hunts are rigged. Wealthy trophy hunters hire commercial guides with packs of dogs trained to attack and then drive the animal into a tree for an easy shot of a stationary animal. It’s a “guaranteed kill,” with the trophy hunter only paying the $8,000 fee after the kill.

It’s even worse for the bobcats. These native cats, just a step up in size from a house cat, are also attacked by packs of dogs — and also killed in baited traps. All to sell their fur to China.

That’s why it’s so important for voters to pass Prop 127 and halt these forms of commercial killing of our native cats.

We are telling our story to voters, especially through three powerful advertisements airing now throughout Colorado. I hope you’ll spend a minute and a half and watch each 30-second ad.

1. Former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service director Dan Ashe, himself a sportsman, called trophy hunting “unsporting, cruel” in the ad he’s featured in. Watch it here.


2. Colonel Tom Pool, DVM, PhD, and our senior veterinarian, tells Coloradans that “as a fair-chase hunter and veterinarian, I just can’t stomach shooting a treed cat at point blank range.” Watch it here.
   
   Pool also says that Colorado needs every mountain lion in the state to do his or her work to arrest the spread of deadly and incurable Chronic Wasting Disease in deer and elk. But for lions he says, CWD would have spread across the mountain counties in western Colorado.


3. “Treed” shows Colorado voters what’s truly at stake — taking us to the front row of a guided trophy hunt of a lion. It’s tough to watch for anyone possessing empathy for animals, but it provides an essential understanding for anyone casting a ballot on this subject. Watch it here.

You and the supporters of Animal Wellness Action and Cats Aren’t Trophies have been extraordinarily generous and we’ve been able to raise more than $3 million to tell the story. But trophy hunting groups are spending millions, including one new front group that dumped in a half million dollars just days ago. We are running out of resources. We may have to pull back on the ads that you see above unless more generous supporters step up.

We have a winning message. But we need fuel to drive it forward.

Dr. Tom Pool and Dan Ashe are telling millions of Coloradans that lions and bobcats are crucial actors in the balance of nature. They check the spread of disease for the benefit of wildlife and all of the people of Colorado who enjoy these animals in many ways.

Will you donate to Animal Wellness Action today to allow us to be all-in on campaigns like this one?

Please give what you can today so we can fund Prop 127 and other campaigns that deliver life-saving outcomes to animals.

For the cats and all other animals,

Wayne Pacelle President Animal Wellness Action