Animal rights activist Ellen Kessler, a gubernatorial appointee to the State Board of Veterinary Medicine, is back in the news with what rural Coloradans and their allies claim is another attack on ranchers.
Kessler, appointed to the state vet board in 2020, has earned the wrath of ranchers and farmers for what they view as inflammatory attacks on the livestock industry. She’s a friend of First Gentleman Marlon Reis, Gov. Jared Polis’ husband. Reis is also an animal rights activist.
The latest salvo was a Facebook post, now deleted, that criticized farmers and ranchers as lazy.
Kessler was responding to a Jan. 19 post by First Gentleman Marlon Reis, Polis’s husband that cited a story from the Missoulian on a new collaboration program with ranchers who deal with grizzly bears.
Referring to recent attacks by wolves on cattle and dogs in northern Colorado, Kessler accused ranchers of using their cows to “bait” wolves in order to receive compensation for the loss of their animals.
“These techniques could easily translate into activism in Colorado for soon-to-be-introduced wolves and other predators already living among us,” Kessler wrote. “Would our lazy and nasty ranchers/cattlemen even raise a finger to make something like this work or is (sic) using a cow to bait the wolves their solution? A living cow doesn’t make money for…
