From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2000--

New anti-live market abuse, rodeo shocking, and animal testing laws in
Calif.--and more!

SACRAMENTO--"After five years of failed agreements, undercover
investigations, and heated public hearings," San Francisco SPCA
Department of Law and Advocacy chief Nathan Winograd announced on October
3, "animal welfare advocates have passed a law protecting live animals
sold for food in California. Governor Gray Davis has signed AB 2479,
introduced by assembly member Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica).
"The new law prohibits stores from skinning and dismembering live
animals, as well as storing and displaying animals in ways likely to
result in injury, starvation, or suffocation. The law applies to frogs,
turtles, and birds sold for food," whom antiquated legal language
previously exempted from coverage by the California anti-cruelty statutes.
"The new law is based on voluntary guidelines for store owners
developed by the San Francisco SPCA in 1998," Winograd continued. "Local
live animal merchants initially agreed to follow the guidelines, but
abandoned the agreement days before it was to be implemented. Months of
public hearings and heated debate between the merchants and animal
advocates followed," while San Francisco attorney Baron Miller pursued an
unsuccessful lawsuit seeking enforcement of existing legislation to halt
abusive live-market practices.
Although the lawsuit failed both at the introductory and appellate
levels, it was instrumental in determining which aspects of existing law
needed to be changed.
The live market battle centered on San Francisco, whose live
markets mostly serve the oldest major ethnic Asian community in North
America, and one of the largest, making up about 45% of the city
electorate. However, similar abuses were discovered at live markets in
Oakland, Stockton, San Jose, and Los Angeles.

Bans rodeo shocking

Altogether, Governor Davis--a conservative Democrat not known for
anything involving animals when elected in 1998--may have signed more major
animal protection bills in just three weeks' time than any other U.S.
governor ever.
Davis signed AB 2479 just a few days after signing 1462, a bill by
state senator Don Peralta (D-Oakland) requiring rodeos to have either an
on-site or on-call veterinarian; requiring written reports on animal
injuries to be submitted to the California Veterinary Medical Board within
48 hours of the conclusion of any rodeo; requiring the presence of a means
of humanely removing injured animals from the rodeo area; and--in an
apparent national precedent--banning the use of electric prods on any
animal in a rodeo holding chute unless necessary to protect spectators or
participants.
The ban on electroshocking follows extensive video documentation by
Steve Hindi and associatiates with SHARK of the use of such devices to make
bulls and broncos buck more vigorously in timed riding events--including at
some of the biggest California rodeos. Riders' scores in such events are
weighed against the efforts of the animals to throw them off.
Oakland resident Eric Mills, founder of Action for Animals, had
lobbied for such legislation for more than a decade.

Protects birds

First approved by Davis was AB 1178, a relatively
non-controversial measure to increase from $1,000 to $5,000 the maximum
penalty for killing migratory and native non-game bird species, including
damaging their nests and/or eggs. The maximum jail sentence for a
violation remains six months. The new law is directed at bird deaths
caused by property maintenance activities, such as hosing swallows' nests
from under eaves or trimming brush at times when birds and eggs are in the
nests. Thoughtlessly destructive property maintenance is believed to be a
major factor in regional declines of songbirds, some of which have become
extirpated, endangered, or threatened.
Davis signed AB 1178 at the same time as AB 1173, a bill to bring
fallow deer ranching under the regulation of the California Department of
Food and Agriculture. Both bills were introduced by assembly member Peter
Frusetta (R-Tres Pinos), and as AB 1173 is regarded as favoring the exotic
meat trade, no one recognized at the time that Davis had begun a
pro-animal roll.

Non-animal testing

Next signed was a bill by state senator Jack O'Connell (D-San Luis
Obispo) to require testers of consumer products such as household
chemicals, cosmetics, and pesticides to use federally approved
alternatives to animal testing.
Backed by the consumer product makers Procter & Gamble and
Colgate-Palmolive, as well as by animal advocacy groups, the new law
resembles earlier O'Connell bills which twice cleared the legislature in
previous sessions, but were vetoed by former governor Pete Wilson, a
Republican.
Procter & Gamble has invested approximately $100 million since 1984
in developing alternatives to animal testing. Several other firms have
invested heavily in alternative methods, and the Food and Drug
Administration and Environmental Protection Agency have recognized some of
the new non-animal tests as superior to standard animal-based product
safety testing, but product liability insurers and other regulatory bodies
have often demanded that conventional animal tests be done parallel to
applications of the new tests.
Right to keep pet
On September 20--over the strenuous opposition of politically
powerful organizations of landlords--Davis signed a precedent-setting bill
by assembly member Helen Thomson (D-Davis) which requires condominium and
mobile home park associations to allow new members to keep at least one
pet. The bill overrides a 1994 California Supreme Court verdict that
favored anti-pet clauses in residence contracts. It is expected to open
tens of thousands of condominum and mobile park residences to adoptive
pets, especially at sites catering to senior citizens, whose members are
typically the most polarized over whether or not to allow pets.