Repeal Of Pound Seizure:
Pound seizure is a law requiring all publicly funded shelters or impound facilities to relinquish any unclaimed animals to research/educational institutions upon request. Minnesota is one of only two states still mandating pound seizure; Oaklahoma is the other state. It is time to put an end to this archaic practice in Minnesota.
On March 14, 2011, Senate File 705 / House File 1098, to repeal pound seizure in Minnesota, was introduced in the Minnesota Senate and House of Representatives. The bill's sponsors are Senators Cohen, Dibble, Marty, and Pappas and Representatives Beard, Hornstein, Mullery and Smith. MHS supports this bill.
On April 28th, the repeal of pound seizure bill was heard by the Senate Agriculture Committee and was unanimously passed. The bill was heard in the House Agriculture Committee on Wednesday, May 4th. Unfortunately no vote was taken and the bill was laid over for possible inclusion with an omnibus bill.
S.F. 440 / H.F 621 authored by Senator Saxhaug and Representatives Dill and Hackbarth would authorize counties to establish a bounty on coyotes and beaver. S.F. 228 authored by Senators Kubly, Higgins Kelash, Gimse and Newman allows counties to offer bounties on coyotes.
MHS opposes both bills because it has not been proven that bounties solve the problems associated with coyotes and beavers, the animal that is killed may or may not be the offending animal, and offering monetary awards may
result in animals being killed regardless of whether they have killed livestock or caused flooding problems.
Bounties were discontinued in Minnesota in 1965. There are nonlethal management techniques for both coyotes
and beavers, which include using guard animals, electric fencing, and humane flood prevention/dam control devices.
Ban On Undercover Humane Investigations
Two critical bills, S.F. 1118 / H.F. 1369 (authored by Senator Doug Magnus and Representative Rod Hamilton-the chairs of the Senate and House Agriculture Committees) were introduced in the legislature. If passed, these bills criminalize anyone blowing the whistle on animal cruelty (ncluding puppy and kitten mills), food and worker safety, labor abuses, and environmental crimes, etc., by making it a crime to video tape and show footage shot inside a puppy/kitten mill or factory farm. These bills also make the possession and distribution of this information (images) a crime, including possession and distribution by the news media. Unfortunately similar bills have also been proposed in Florida and Iowa. It is because of such investigation that Kathy Bauck, owner of the Puppies On Wheels breeding facility, was charged and convicted of animal cruelty.
Find contact information here for the members of Minnesota’s House of Representatives and Senate.
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