APV's 2011 State Legislative Agenda

Strengthen New Mexico’s Animal Cruelty Statute

This bill will:

• Define “sustenance” as “food, water, and shelter, provided that shelter with regard to livestock shall be in keeping with commonly accepted agricultural animal husbandry practices."
  
  
• Define “recklessly” as “acting with knowledge that the person’s actions create a substantial and foreseeable risk, disregarding the risk and being wholly indifferent to the consequences and to the welfare and safety of the animal”.
  
  
• Make the following conduct, when it leads to great bodily harm or death, punishable as a fourth degree felony:
  
  
  • Reckless mistreatment (defined as “tormenting, torturing, mutilating, poisoning, or otherwise inflicting unnecessary physical injury upon an animal”);
    
    
  • failing to provide necessary sustenance;
    
    
  • abandoning an animal.
    
    
• Include captive reptiles in the scope of the animal cruelty statute.
  
  
• Define bestiality and make the crime a fourth degree felony.
  
  
• Clarify that the practice of veterinary medicine is exempted only in accordance with commonly accepted veterinary practices.
  

Extend Sunset Date for Animal Sheltering Board
New Mexico's Animal Sheltering Board provides important oversight and guidance for the state's animal shelters. As you may know, the Board recently developed and implemented mandatory rules for the practice of humane euthanasia in shelters.

The Board will next embark on recommended minimum standards for New Mexico’s animal shelters, and will work to develop statewide spay-neuter planning as well. Over 130,000 homeless, lost and abandoned dogs and cats enter New Mexico's shelters each year; the animals euthanized number more than half. They deserve no less than concentrated and coordinated statewide work to reduce their suffering. Click here for a comprehensive look at how the Animal Sheltering Board ensures the humane treatment of animals in our state’s shelters.

Recent efforts to streamline state government include a recommendation to consolidate the Animal Sheltering Board with the New Mexico Board of Veterinary Medicine. Both boards are actively examining the challenges and opportunities involved in implementing this suggestion in a timely manner. In the interim, it is imperative that the Animal Sheltering Board is allowed to continue operating in accordance with the Animal Sheltering Act. For that reason, APV supports the extension of the Animal Sheltering Board’s “sunset date” (the date by which the board would otherwise be dissolved).

Rep. Jeannette Wallace introduced HB 234, which extends the Animal Sheltering Board’s sunset date. The bill has been referred to the House Agriculture & Water Resources committee, and the House Health & Government Affairs committee. If your legislators serve on these committees, please contact them and urge their support of this bill.


Additional Important Legislation in 2011
As of now, several additional bills have been introduced that deserve your vocal support.

• Senate Bill 11, Senator Peter Wirth, Dogs in Certain Restaurant Areas, allowing “pet dogs” in designated outdoor dining areas of food service establishments.

• Senate Bill 40, Senator Phil Griego, Livestock Crime Stoppers Act, creating a livestock crime stoppers program that provides rewards for information leading to the arrest, prosecution and conviction of those who commit livestock-related crimes.

• Senate Bill 103, Senator Tim Eichenberg, Cruelty to Animals Provisions, making intentional starvation or dehydration of an animal that imperils an animal’s life a fourth degree felony.

• Senate Memorial 36, Senator Michael Sanchez, Low Cost Spay and Neuter Study, requesting the Animal Sheltering Board to conduct a study on the feasibility of establishing a fund to lower the cost of spaying and neutering cats and dogs.

• Senate Memorial 43, Senator Tim Eichenberg, Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge, expressing the support of the Senate for the designation of property along the Rio Grande in Bernalillo county as a national wildlife refuge.

• Senate Bill 474, Senator Linda Lopez, Order of Protection Filing & Enforcement, domestic pets are included in the scope of protections offered to victims of domestic violence.

• House Bill 90, Representative Don Tripp, Purchase Protective Vests for Police Dogs, changing the purpose of the law enforcement protection fund to allow for the purchase of protective equipment for police dogs.

• House Bill 126, Representative Al Park, Prohibit Interference With Zoo Animals, making it a petty misdemeanor to intentionally and without authorization enter into an animal enclosure or habitat at a zoo while an animal is present.

• House Joint Memorial 10, Representative Mimi Stewart, Large Animal Traffic Safety Pilot Project, an initiative of the Wild Friends youth program, requesting state agencies work with state police to create a pilot traffic safety project in an accident-prone area of the state to save lives by reducing collisions between large animals and drivers.

 

BILLS TO OPPOSE

We oppose these bills that may jeopardize efforts to protect threatened and endangered species under the federal Endangered Species Act:

• House Bill 543, Representative Don Tripp, Endangered Species Management Compacts

• House Bill 567, Representative Zachary Cook, State Responsibility for Endangered Species

 
Finally, thank you for supporting Animal Protection Voters as we invest tremendous time and resources to monitor bills and work for their passage.