A mountain lion peers through glass patio doors, staring intently at a young girl just a few feet away inside the house. Behind the big cat is the family’s dead house cat, freshly killed by the 120-pound mountain lion. Inside, the girl’s mother frantically yells through the glass panes to scare the cougar away, but to no avail. The scene was part of an ad that was seen by millions of Coloradans leading up to one of the nation’s most hotly contested ballot measures last November.

Proposition 127, backed by mostly Washington D.C.-based animal rights groups, sought to ban mountain lion hunting in that state. The ad ends with Dan Prenzlow, former director of Colorado Parks & Wildlife observing, “The cat killed one meal (the house cat) and was eyeing the child as its next prey. That should give every parent chills,” he warns.

The ad was part of a campaign designed to message to Denver and Boulder mothers specifically and women in general, a demographic opponents of the measure knew were likely to be heavily in favor of the hunting ban.

To read the rest of the column click here