{"id":46361,"date":"2021-06-08T22:31:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-09T04:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/la-plata-county-commission-opposes-effort-to-expand-animal-cruelty-laws-to-fish-livestock\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:31:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:31:16","slug":"la-plata-county-commission-opposes-effort-to-expand-animal-cruelty-laws-to-fish-livestock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/la-plata-county-commission-opposes-effort-to-expand-animal-cruelty-laws-to-fish-livestock\/","title":{"rendered":"La Plata County commission opposes effort to expand animal cruelty laws to fish, livestock"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"La
La Plata County commissioners voted Tuesday to oppose a proposed state ballot initiative about the treatment of animals out of concern for agricultural and veterinary industries. (Associated Press file)<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

La Plata County commissioners on Tuesday came out in opposition to a proposed ballot initiative that would overhaul the state\u2019s animal cruelty laws by adding regulations and redefining certain animal treatment techniques as \u201csex acts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The citizens initiative, named \u201cProtect Animals from Unnecessary Suffering and Exploitation\u201d or PAUSE, would amend the state definition of livestock to include fish, define the natural lifespan for certain animals and classify common farm practices as sex acts.<\/p>\n

Proponents of the initiative have to gather 124,632 valid voter signatures to get the initiative on the November 2022 ballot.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis, in my opinion, will do a lot of damage in the agriculture sector, especially in the state and La Plata County,\u201d said Matt Salka, county commissioner, during a board of county commissioners meeting Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The proposed initiative would expand the legal conditions for cruelty to animals, a Class 1 misdemeanor, to all animals \u2013 not just dogs and cats. Another addition: Slaughtering livestock would count as cruelty to animals, unless the animal has lived one-quarter of its natural lifespan and the animal is slaughtered without needless suffering.<\/p>\n

The proposal defines natural lifespan as: 20 years for a cow, eight years for a chicken, 10 years for a turkey, six years for a duck, 15 years for a pig, 15 years for sheep and six years for a rabbit.<\/p>\n

It provided some exclusions for animals involved in research, wildlife nuisances, and wildlife and predator control.<\/p>\n

The proposed initiative would also expand the definition of \u201csexual act with an animal\u201d to include any intrusion or penetration, however slight, with an object or part of a person\u2019s body into an animal\u2019s anus or genitals, unless the act is done for the animal\u2019s health.<\/p>\n

Proponents of PAUSE, also called Initiative 16, say it would extend basic animal welfare rights granted to pets to all farmed animals. The initiative\u2019s designated representatives are Alexander Sage of Broomfield and Brent Johannes of Boulder.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter seeing with our own eyes, thousands of chickens on a Colorado organic free range farm left without food and severely abused, we knew there was a discrepancy between the public image and the reality of some farms,\u201d says the Colorado PAUSE website. \u201cThe resulting ballot initiative seeks to legally require farms to treat their animals with some respect, and bring the reality closer to the idealistic image of what the average consumer hopes is the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opponents say the initiative uses misleading language and would severely impact the livestock and veterinary industries.<\/p>\n

Colorado Veterinary Medical Association said the initiative would make spaying and neutering animals a criminal offense<\/a>, along with other common veterinary medical surgeries.<\/p>\n

Artificial insemination of dogs, horses and livestock would be considered bestiality, as would pregnancy checking, semen collection and fertility testing.<\/p>\n

The initiative would also affect the quality of meat products because most animals are slaughtered before they have lived one-quarter of their natural lifespan, as defined by the initiative.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we can all support the title of the initiative, the text as written has far-reaching negative effects,\u201d said county staff members in a presentation Tuesday. \u201cThe economic impact of this increased lifespan to farmers and ranchers would be devastating to Colorado producers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Commissioners Clyde Church and Salka voted to oppose the PAUSE initiative. Commissioner Marsha Porter-Norton was absent from the meeting but said she supported the commission\u2019s decision in an email to The Durango Herald<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe it is an extreme measure that goes far beyond stopping animal cruelty,\u201d Porter-Norton said. \u201cIt will hurt our livestock producers and many other types of businesses as well. It is too extreme, and I hope the measure doesn\u2019t make it on the ballot.\u201d<\/p>\n

smullane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Initiative seeks to extend life of ag animals, redefine some farm practices as \u2018sex acts\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[281,382,28,1680,1398],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-46361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-agriculture","tag-animal","tag-headlines","tag-la-plata-county-commissioners","tag-livestock-farming"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46361"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86849,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46361\/revisions\/86849"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46361"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=46361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}