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State Vet to Meet with Activists on Animal Cruelty Laws; Press Still Obsessed with HSUS

Shari Kosel marched against a blizzard of Big Ag baloney last winter when she and fellow South Dakotans fighting animal cruelty brought Senate Bill 171 to the 2013 Legislature. This bill would have upped the penalty for the torture and killing of dogs, cats, and horses. Incredibly, Big Ag treated this sensible protection against sociopaths as an assault on industrial agriculture promulgated by out-of-state animal rights extremists. That snow job worked, and SB 171 failed in committee.

Yet Kosel and friends continue their efforts, and they are getting some press. The Tri-State Neighbor notes that state veterinarian Dustin Oedekoeven plans to meet with Kosel to talk about South Dakota's animal cruelty laws and how we might improve them.

Alas, the TSN report gets one fact wrong and incorrectly fans the flames of anti-HSUS paranoia:

Many legislators and others said they thought the group was linked to and financed by the Humane Society of United States (HSUS), which isn’t exactly popular among the state’s agricultural community and politicians.

Kosel said her group was offered money by HSUS but refused it.

She said it is a group of South Dakotans who simply want better protections for companion animals [Barry Amundson, "S.D. Meeting Planned on Possible Animal Cruelty Laws," Tri-State Neighbor, 2013.04.18].

Bzzzzt! Sorry, Neighbor, that's incorrect. Kosel tells me she said no such thing. Kosel says the Humane Society of the United States has not offered her and her group any money. Consistent with her previous public comments, Kosel maintains that she and her fellow animal defenders are 100% South Dakotan, with no connection to national groups. Kosel says she told Amundson that the Animal Legal Defense Fund has offered to do phone surveys to spread the word about animal cruelty, but that such an effort would happen independent of SDFACT.

Maybe someday we'll be able to discuss the substance of SDFACT's animal protection proposals without invoking the bogeymen of the Big Ag lobby. But as long as that rabid industry lobby keeps infecting our legislators with misconceptions to stop good policy, we'll have to keep talking about and refuting those misconceptions.

Update 09:48 MDT: The reference to HSUS offering SDFACT money has been stricken from the Amundson article.

9 Comments

  1. bret clanton 2013.04.22

    For some perspective, of the all the problems we face in this society today where should this issue reside?

  2. Les 2013.04.22

    That would not put it in the hands of the state vet Barry. Long reach to put an animal cruelty law on the books to keep the Jeffery Dahmers from existing...
    .
    Give me the ability to value my dog his true worth, not put some sorry soul in prison for a couple of years with no value coming to me for my loss.
    .
    Next thing after that, some will be sitting on the hill watching Brett work cattle with the spyglass, and, it will be their word against his.

  3. Barry Smith 2013.04.22

    The links between human violence and animal violence gives some perspective to why this can be seen as an issue Les. How we deal with it is a whole nother ballgame.

  4. Barry Smith 2013.04.22

    I have my share of concerns about new laws on this. It is the grey areas that surround everyday life on a ranch or farm that are the problem. I don't know how many times I have lifted a farmcat into the air with my boot to keep them out of something, but if someone videoed it you would get the impression that I was kicking my pet cat. Lots of grey area.

  5. caheidelberger Post author | 2013.04.22

    It's always a good idea to look at unforeseen consequences or overreach that could come from a law. We should expect lawmakers to write, rewrite, read, and reread to make sure they don't open up some big liability can of worms.

    Let's look at Barry's cat-booting situation. I can't say what form animal-cruelty legislation might take next year, but here's the main language of this year's SB 171:

    "No person may maliciously and intentionally cause the mistreatment, torture, or cruelty of any dog, cat, or horse resulting in serious injury, serious illness, or the death of the dog, cat, or horse."

    Suppose that were law. Suppose I'm lingering around Barry's fence, and I see him boot-launch his cat out of some oil or muck or some such stuff the cat shouldn't be in. I get a great picture of Barry's cat in flight, post it to the blog, and get a million hits. Hit #1,000,001 is a cat lover who forwards that photo to the state's attorney, who files charges. Barry cusses me out, then comes to court. He points out he wasn't acting maliciously toward the cat; he was trying to keep it out of harmful mischief. His skillfully applied boot did not result in injury. The state's attorney has no case, right?

    If there's grey area, it's somewhere south of Barry's example.

  6. caheidelberger Post author | 2013.04.22

    Les, don't forget: Kosel isn't proposing any legislation dealing with cattle. This year's bill explicitly excluded any "usual and customary practice in production agriculture." I'm still having a hard time finding the bogeyman on this bill.

  7. caheidelberger Post author | 2013.04.22

    Bret, we can take any problem and point to another problem that is "bigger" by some metric. There are existential moments when I wonder why I'm teaching the French imparfait when I could be fighting racism or tilting at some such bigger windmill. Then I remember that we all have a job to do.

    As Shari will point out, animal cruelty has proven sufficiently serious to warrant tougher action from just about every state but South Dakota.

    We could flip the relative-minimization argument and ask why Steve Dick and Ag United screamed so hard about this law if it isn't really that big of a deal. I'm not fond of that argument, but it's worth mentioning.

    Animal cruelty is a crime. We can punish it more severely with a simple change in our laws. Even if the problem is smaller than others, do we not still have a moral obligation to fix it if we can with reasonable legislation?

  8. Shari Kosel 2013.04.23

    The North Dakota House votes tomorrow on their felony animal cruelty bill and both House and Senate have approved some bill provisions. Their bill seeks more penalties than we were seeking, yet they were able to collaborate with their state Ag entities.

    South Dakota will be last in the nation.
    http://www.legis.nd.gov/assembly/63-2013/documents/13-0380-05000.pdf?20130415135718

    From Aberdeen American news:

    Our Voice: SD far behind on punishing animal cruelty
    April 17, 2013|American News editorial board

    South Dakota, by all measurements, has the weakest animal abuse penalties in the nation.

    And when lawmakers during this most recent session had the chance to add felony provisions for animal abuse, they refused, making us the only state in the nation where animal abuse still brings only misdemeanor charges.

    Even North Dakota, the last holdout with South Dakota, limply added tougher penalties for animal cruelty.

    On Friday, an area resident will be in Brown County court on 33 counts of inhumane treatment of animals and two counts of allowing an injured or diseased animal to suffer needlessly.

    All those charges are misdemeanors.

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