Both Wyoming and Utah have no pending bills approaching the 2020 legislative sessions regarding animal cruelty and the potential for any punishment adjustment.
With this I can see that nothing has been able to be done with this issue and that it will only continue to be a problem until another bill is passed to help these animals. I was surprised to see this, I had though that there was more being done and it actually concerns me to see what is actually going on.
"We are one of the worst states in the country for animal protection," says Humane Society of Utah's Advocacy Director Rachel Heatley, who hopes to implement inter-agency reporting for both human and animal cases in the future. "It's really difficult to enforce anti-cruelty provisions when it takes 30 minutes to get to a call for an animal control agent, we have very few agents and a large amount of space for them to cover."
This is from an interview with Rachel Heatley, who is the Humane Society of Utah's Advocacy Director. She is working to implement inter-agency reporting for both human and animal cases in the future. She says in her interview that it is really difficult to enforce any anti-cruelty provisions when it takes so long to get a call from an animal control agent. She explains how there isn't many agents and it is just too little for the amount of space they have to cover. I think that by talking about how little animal control agents there are as well as the amount of time it takes to be able to get anything done, shows just how much work we have to do in order to get something done.
The State of Utah ranks 43rd out of 50 in the rankings, which cite a lack of felony provisions, an ag-gag law, and no provision for pre-conviction restitution or forfeiture of cruelly treated animals.
an-gag law: refer to the animal agriculture industries attempts to silence animal activists with laws that directly target or punish their attempts to expose cruelty in places like feedlots, slaughterhouses, farms, and in transport.
"It's much more difficult to prove neglect or starvation than it is to prove broken bones, beating, torture, that kind of thing when it comes to animal law." The provision went into effect in Wyoming on July 1, 2019. Zwonitzer says that it's already been used in various cases but hasn't formally been charged against an individual.
Here I believe they are talking about a provision that Representative Daniel Zwonitzer passed in 2019 for prosecutors to be able to put it forward a jury and allow a felony-level offense even if the animal does not die. Although this provision went into effect, it still has not been formally charged against anyone. Even on this specific case that they are reporting, one of the dogs did die and this is still not being used. It definitely shows how little protection we have for animals and how much work has to be done in order to keep animals safe.
following the death of a dog in a Rock Springs, Wyoming animal cruelty case that is still in the courts. In that case, a 20-year-old woman was cited for animal cruelty after two dogs were located malnourished and on the verge of death.
I think that including this recent story of this woman and her case is important to my local issue. I think that it shows that animal cruelty is still an ongoing issue and that there is still so much work to be done. I think maybe sometimes people maybe don't hear enough stories about animal cruelty and neglect that they don't realize how much of an issue it is.