Colorado’s First Gentleman Marlon Reis has deactivated his social media accounts after engaging in a howling argument about wolves on Facebook over the weekend.
Reis, the husband of Colorado Democratic Governor Jared Polis, had posted online about grants the state offers for non-lethal wolf repellents when he got into a heated exchange with David Gittleson in the comments, according to 9 News.
Gittleson is a cattle rancher in Walden, a town of about 600 people 150 miles northwest of Denver, and had struggled with his cattle being killed by wolves for years even before Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) officially reintroduced the wolves to the state in December, the newspaper reported.
“The truth is, I don’t care. I don’t care what you eat or don’t eat. I don’t care what you think you know or what you think you’re qualified to do,” Rais ranted at Gitttleson, according to screenshots obtained by the outlet.
“I don’t care why your family seems to love the spotlight and never misses an opportunity to badmouth the Front Range. If you’re proud to be a rancher, act like one. All this whining goes nowhere fast,” he continued.
“You have abused the media by stoking fear of wolves. You have an entire agency at your disposal to resolve disputes. The interference you believe is fabricated,” Reis said in another comment. “David, I want you to do well. But you must use the system that has been set up. No one gets special treatment. The law applies equally to all parties.”
It is not immediately clear what Gittleson said to upset Reis.
Since Monday, the Facebook page “First Gentleman Marlon Reis” is no longer publicly active on Facebook.
When asked by The Washington Post, a spokesman for Governor Polis said Reis “views social media as a means to celebrate animals and share the many ways the Polis administration is proactively working to protect them.”
“Over the past few weeks, the volume of negative comments on his posts has increased to the point where he felt his pages were no longer serving the purpose of promoting compassion, appreciation and respect for animals,” said spokeswoman Shelby Wieman. “Rather than allow his social media channels to become forums for disinformation, he has decided to deactivate them for the time being.”
According to Colorado Public Radio, several animals have been attacked by a pack of 10 wolves since they were brought to Colorado this winter as part of a voter-approved reintroduction plan.
On Wednesday, conservation authorities said they were trying to capture and relocate the pack after its repeated attacks on livestock. According to the Associated Press, this was the first failure in the first year of the initiative, which has faced fierce opposition from ranchers.
Cattle breeders’ associations want to kill the wolf pack. But animal rights activists believe that more should have been done to prevent the wolves from killing livestock. This includes, for example, electric fences that can better ward off attacks.
Unlike other states where wolves have been reintroduced, Colorado authorities have decided not to kill wolves to kill livestock because “there are not enough wolves in the landscape to fatally disperse the pack,” said spokesman Travis Duncan.
Rancher Ted Ritschard, who lives about 15 miles (24 kilometers) from the ranch in Grand County, Colorado, where most of the cattle attacks occurred, told AP he was glad the pack was being removed.
He blamed them for the killing of at least 16 cattle and sheep and wants them to remain in captivity so they do not kill again.
“These pups have learned to kill livestock, so they’ll continue to do that,” said Ritschard, president of the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association. “Once they eat sheep or cattle, it’s a whole different world.”
Polis became the first openly gay politician in U.S. history to be elected governor of a state after handily winning the 2018 gubernatorial election. He was re-elected to a second term in 2022.
On his husband’s governor’s page, Reis is described as a “freelance writer, animal rights activist, father and first First Gentleman of Colorado.”
“From raising his two wonderful children to his ongoing support of animal welfare organizations like the Wild Animal Sanctuary here in Colorado, Marlon is already committed to making Colorado an even better place to live,” the website states.
He and Polis married in 2021 and have two children together.
With post wires