Voters didn’t place a higher value on the perceived happiness of sheep than on the very real ability of people to earn a living doing important work that allows them to support their families. Thank goodness. The failure of Denver’s 309 that sought to outlaw slaughterhouses in the City and County of Denver is being spoken about with great relief and a bit of surprise in cafes and salebarns around the country.

The future of the business that is vitally important to the sheep industry across the western United States was decided by 235,320 voters. Luckily for the employee owners of Superior Farms and the larger agriculture industry, only 83,149 people had the wool pulled over their eyes, as it were.

Last year, at St. Onge Livestock Market in South Dakota, a Belle Fourche, South Dakota, ranch sold 78 head of 63-pound feeder lambs for $242 per hundredweight and 256 head of 89-pound feeder lambs for $226 per hundredweight. In 2024, with the looming possibility that when these lambs are ready to be slaughtered, there will be 30% less shackle space in the country, the market reacted. This year, that same ranch sold 117 head of 63-pound lambs for $188 per hundredweight and 147 head of 81-pound lambs for $179 per hundredweight. That’s a drop in the average price from $189.77 per head to $133.22 per head. This should leave no doubt poor decisions in Colorado seep out of our state borders.

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California has been dominating agriculture headlines since their Prop 12 passage that forced pork producers nationwide to invest millions of dollars to comply with the space requirements arbitrarily set forth for sows. In hog production, there aren’t specific farms or specific barns that produce animals bound for the food supply in a certain state. And because consumers in California like pork and consistently purchase it, failure to comply with Prop 12 requirements leaves a huge chunk of the market closed to producers who aren’t in compliance. It has been expensive for producers and expensive for consumers with pork in California costing about 40% more since the proposition went into effect. Sonoma County voters, though, hinted they want extremists to stay out of the way of feeding people and defeated a measure to reduce and phase out livestock operations of a certain size.

We’re weeks from the enactment of another animal rights-driven law requiring all eggs sold in the state to be cage-free. This has forced our egg producers in this state and others to pivot, though it’s an expensive investment that solves a problem that is merely perceived. What it has done is leave egg coolers in Colorado and surrounding states low on eggs and high on prices. Did it improve the lives of chickens? Maybe. Did it make more expensive a previously inexpensive source of quality protein in an already inflated grocery price environment? Sure did.

During a CBS television appearance last week, Dick Wadhams spoke about 309 and asked which problem it sought to solve. I cheered loud when he explained it solved not a single problem. Rather than locally processed lamb, the sheep in the western U.S. would be trucked to the east coast to be processed. Rather than gainfully employed, thousands would be without jobs. Rather than encouraging businesses, one would be shuttered and with it, thousands of other jobs lost.

The story with the proposed mountain lion and bobcat hunting ban is the same. The management of big cats will thankfully remain in the hands of the wildlife biologists at Colorado Parks and Wildlife. The proposed mountain lion and bobcat hunting ban passed in only six counties — Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, San Juan and San Miguel. Though the final tally was 55.5% of voters who rejected the measure, as expected, rural counties were resoundingly against the ban. Given the choice between tasking CPW or Tiger King femme fatale Carole Baskin with wildlife management, most of Colorado chose CPW.

What problem would it have solved? None. It would have created problems. Which problems did Prop 12 solve? None. It created new ones. What problems will the mid-level veterinary professional passage solve? None. We’re going to saddle graduates with $100,000 of debt to do a job that doesn’t exist, but now that it does, the major responsibilities of the job are prohibited by federal law. Which problems would the Denver fur ban solve? None. It would have created more, again on the back of the Denver economy.

The ballot-initiative process, much to my dismay, won’t likely be fixed so as not to be an excellent weapon against agriculture, hunting and oil and gas. It’s unlikely Colorado will become less friendly to animal rights causes, especially in the next two years. It’s unlikely the sympathy vote will go by the wayside in favor of informed voters. The lesson here is to refuse to be caught flat-footed once again.

The increased voter turnout and the results of many of the races and questions both state and nationally suggest perhaps common sense exists. However, sound defeats will energize proponents of many bad ideas and they’ll be back, well-funded, and ready to try again. Leave your pads on, kids. That was just the first quarter.

Rachel Gabel writes about agriculture and rural issues. She is assistant editor of The Fence Post Magazine, the region’s preeminent agriculture publication. Gabel is a daughter of the state’s oil and gas industry and a member of one of the state’s 12,000 cattle-raising families, and she has authored children’s books used in hundreds of classrooms to teach students about agriculture.