Colorado Gov. Bill Owens castigated People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) last month after a PETA spokesman criticized efforts to save cattle stranded by the holiday blizzards. Owens called PETA “a bunch of losers” and “frauds,” and advised radio listeners to KRFX to refrain from contributing to the activist group.

“The entire situation could have been avoided for cattle and other farm animals if factory farms weren't doing these things and keeping them outdoors all the time,” a PETA spokesman said in a KRFX radio interview. “You're going to save them and then and in six months they're going to be killed and end up on someone's plate, so I don't know that it's really the most noble cause.”

Later, Owens told the same radio crew, “they're frauds. I just signed an executive order to have the Colorado National Guard, at some risk to those men and women, try to save these cattle and it's amazing that PETA doesn't want us to feed freezing cattle.

“It's a strange group of people,” Owens told listeners. “Don't send money to PETA.”