by Laura Allen of Animal Law Coalition
Misuse of Power Runs Wild at State Levels
Utah state Rep. Curt Oda
As the Utah 2011 legislative session gets underway, state Rep. Curt Oda wasted no time in introducing a bill that reflects his legislative priority. He is not using his position as a legislator, however, to try to create jobs, improve schools, or protect children, for example. Instead, his bill, H.B. 210, encourages the torture and killing of animals.
Oda wants to amend the state’s animal cruelty law, Section 76-9-301, to exempt “pests” and “feral” animals from the definition of animal. This means that to the extent they were protected, these animals would no longer be protected by the state’s animal cruelty law. Oda is reported to have told a local newspaper that “feral” animals and “pests” could be shot with a bow and arrow, for example, decapitated or clubbed to death.
Under Utah law a “feral” animal is one “that is normally domesticated but has reverted to the wild.” Ut. Code 23-13-2 Like cats, pigs or horses. If the bill becomes law, anyone could shoot, beat to death, or drown cats in a feral cat colony, for example.
The bill would also weaken the state’s animal cruelty law in other ways. Under H.B. 210 it would be legal to shoot an animal as long as the intent is to “humanely kill” the animal. It would also be a defense to any animal cruelty or torture if the actions are “reasonable and necessary to protect the actor or another person from injury or death”. There is no limit, though, on how the animal could be killed in such a situation.
In 2008 the Utah legislature amended the state animal cruelty law to exempt some animals from its protections and also for the first time created a felony penalty for the torture of domestic dogs and cats. Horses as well as farm animals are already not considered “animals” under Utah’s 2008 animal cruelty law as long as they are treated according to accepted husbandry or customary farming practices. It is not clear feral horses or feral pigs have any protections anyway, but cats do, and this bill, H.B. 210, would allow them to be killed by the most horrific forms of torture.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Find your UT legislator here. Write (faxes or letters are best) or call and urge him or her to vote NO on H.B. 210. Please be polite and be sure to tell the legislator that you are a constituent.
Categories: Horse News, Horse Slaughter
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
I enjoy learning, nice and early of prosposed misuse of power and to learn of which states plan to kill horses… those are the states I will boycott, tell my friends to boycott and will never visit again…. thanks for the heads up.. I hope you state fails in every way now.
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What??? Reprehensible that Representative Oda would denegrate himself to abuse animals.
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NOW, they are coming out of the shadows and we can see WHO they are.
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It would be good to start checking voting records
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OMG! I,m shocked…WHAT!???????? This guy is putting *FUEL* on the Fire, right now.(SICK) !
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Gee-zus. You can go to Congress.org to write to him. Or any other rep for that matter. And Obama.
Disgusting.
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From this article, the bill has already passed the House. If so, what was the margin and who was for/against? The article would be sort of funny if the issue wasn’t so damn serious. If this inhumane bill does become law, how will Nevadans be able to protect their personal animals that happen to get loose? Once they’re off a person’s property, could they be killed because someone “thought” (not PROVED!) the animal was “feral”?
http://anipalinfo.com/utahs-hb-210-allows-feral-animal-killing
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Well this dude looks like he is chinese and we all know what they eat horses, dogs and cats.
Maybe one of the local kill shelters could dump their dogs and cats on his doorstep for dinner.
Sorry but I am really pissed off!!
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Ahhhhhh!!! How I long for, “The Good ol’ days” Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, John Wayne, Will Rogers, etc. People were proud of our handsome steeds. Doesn’t anybody remember how much the horse has helped us in so many ways, to make this country what it is????? Some foreigners are making a mockery of our Beautiful U.S.A. To bring us down to their level.
And those people are leading us like lemmings into the Sea…..
What kind of people just discard a loving, versatile animal, as if it were an old car at the junk yard??? People from other countries used to look up to us and want to pattern themselves after us. :- (((((((((
What’s going on is very Sad!!!!! I’m so ashamed (tears)
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Just another hateful person in government…we are not a country of compassion and positive progress any more… WOW ! The good ol’ USA
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“Oda is reported to have told a local newspaper that “feral” animals and “pests” could be shot with a bow and arrow, for example, decapitated or clubbed to death.”
That is unbelievable!!!
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Remember, this is the state that wants to make miscarriage a crime.
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Is he even an American? Clubbed to death? Who voted for him anyway?
This just gets worse & worse. There’s going to be REAL Trouble before this is over. Much more people believe in saving our last Wild horses/Burro’s, than don’t!
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By all means, and lets have ‘crush videos domumenting..oh thats right congress passed a law prohibiting that kind of behavior..this is a low life disgusting person..what is the rational for this bill? what kind of culture does this reptile come from..check his criminal record as animal abusers only start there
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The American Veterinary Medical Association’s guidelines for humane euthanasia include shooting (I can’t imagine they’d recommend bows and arrows!), blows to the head (“captive bolt”?) and decapitation (Is the animal alive when a vet saws it’s head off? I certainly hope not!), but they emphasize the killings should be done by properly trained people using well-maintained equipment (Not the nearest 2×4!). Decapitation is primarily recommended for a research setting.
And I’d like to know the AVMA position on drowning cats.
This whole thing is DISGUSTING!!!
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I’m doing a slow burn right now. And will shortly switch over to my word processing program. But first I wanted to say this to you all. Our concept of the misguided or misinformed abuser of animals has got to change. This lawmaker (from whichever reptilian culture he came) is the edge of the wave of horror we are seeing all around the world. It is becoming more urgent than ever that we speak up, run for office, publicize the TRUTH, and look this type of behavior in the eye and call it for what it is. These are the acts of sociopaths.
This man is going to be accountable for suggesting that a sane person “classify” an animal to allow killing by decapitation, by bow and arrow or clubbing and, in turn, escaping charges of animal cruelty.
It comes to mind that these so-called representatives are so comfortable living on taxpayer paid benefits, they don’t really have to think anything through. Just upchuck the occasional miscreant thought and go on.
And lastly, reading this together with the continuous taunting reference by some wild horse wanna-be killers that these wild horses should be categorized as and are called feral. This ridiculous excuse for a lawmaker has just tantalized all the wanna-bees with a thought they might actually be entitled to bowhunt or club one of them to death.
By the way, a man has just been arrested and charged for the brutal baseball bat clubbing oa a pregnant 2-year old mare down in Mississppi and has been charged with animal cruelty. Which is just how it should be.
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I HAVE A SUGGESTION THAT SOMEONE CONTACT THE ELDERS OF THE MORMAN CHURCH IN UTAH AND COMPLAIN ABOUT THIS BILL AND MR ODA AS THE CHURCH IS A POWER FEW WOULD GO AGAINST ESPECIALLY A SENATOR OR REPRESENTATIVE. ONE THING THEY WOULD NOT LIKE IS SOMEONE DISGRACING UTAH AND THE CHURCH AND THIS MAN IS DOING BOTH.
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Shirley Le Garde That is a fabulous thing to do………………
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Here is another a__h__ to join Slaughterhouse Sue and the Utah representative. What is happening. It seems they are breeding right in front of our eyes. Why did these horrible individuals get elected and do all these states have idiots that vote for these people. I can’t believe that we now have two others in Congress that thinks the same as Slaughterhouse Sue. God help us – it’s not getting any better and our fight is getting bigger each day. Maybe this guy should be taken our and beheaded. In fact, all three might be a good challenge to see how they would like it.
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UTAH is BEGGING some industry to help with millions and millions of EATABLE asian carp infesting all of UTAHS waterways.
“We’re looking pretty much at a spectrum of uses that could go anywhere from land-filling, which we really don’t want to do, all the way up to human consumption,” said Chris Keleher, recovery programs assistant director for the Utah Department of Natural Resources, which is trying to remove about 50 million pounds of carp from Utah Lake, near Provo, over the next six years.”””””
yet these idiots want to kill and eat horses? what the heck is the matter with them? GO GET THE CARP for food!!!
ref article- http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/27/us/27carp.html?_r=1&ref=lakes
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and I reply to myself.. they are offering big money (ref article) to any company!! If Sue wants a eatable food company go get the $$$ and the fish meat! leave our horses alone you witch!
“”The service would contribute about $1 million of the $1.5 million total cost for a year’s worth of carp-killing if the environmental review is approved. “”””””
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Despicable but we know who is !!! I will write all ! Also wanted to mention last Nites Eclipse Awards show, on there was a speaker Mary Lou Whitney and delightful lady who outwardly in her speech expressed her complete dismay with horse slaughter of any Kind………………………… HUGE KUDOS for A LITTLE LADY !!!!
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Nebraska truly needs to come to their senses on this, their are awesome people there whom i am sure do not condone this, Please step forward people of Nebraska , show this moron you are a force to be dealt with !!!!!
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Steven Colbert did an AMAZING send up of Oda last night. I just watched the rerun, and it’s up on his website. Run your cursor over the images to the right of the main image, and it will give you a caption. I hope the “Colbert Nation” takes this one and runs with it!
http://www.colbertnation.com/home
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Oda is becoming a world wide embarrassment to Utah.
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/372322/january-26-2011/mr–smith-goes-to-the-state-legislature-then-later-possibly-washington—curtis-oda?xrs=share_fb
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Oda is one of those selfish human beings that lacks empathy. He is always coming up with new bills that will harm animals. Many think Oda is mentally disturbed. It is more than a little obvious Oda causes Utah much harm.
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