BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 2269
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Date of Hearing: April 13, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Lorena Gonzalez, Chair
AB
2269 (Waldron) - As Amended March 30, 2016
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Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: YesReimbursable:
Yes
SUMMARY:
Prohibits the sale or transfer of live animals from pounds and
animal shelters to any animal dealer or research facility for
purposes of research or experimentation. Specifically, this
AB 2269
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bill:
1)Prohibits a person or animal shelter that accepts animals from
the public or takes in stray or unwanted animals from selling,
giving, or otherwise transferring a living animal to a
research facility or to an animal dealer, and prohibits the
research facility or animal dealer from procuring or otherwise
accepting such animals.
2)Prohibits a person or animal shelter from euthanizing any
animal for the purpose, in whole or in part, of transferring
the carcass to a research facility or animal dealer.
3)Establishes a $1,000 civil penalty for any violation of these
provisions, in an action brought by a local prosecutor.
FISCAL EFFECT:
1)Any costs to county animal facilities, while
state-reimbursable, should be minor and absorbable.
2)Potential minor non-reimbursable costs to cities and counties
for enforcement, offset to some extent by fine revenue.
COMMENTS:
Purpose. This bill, sponsored by the State Humane Association of
California, expressly prohibits, the acquisition of live animals
from public or private animal shelters for use in scientific or
other experimentation-a practice commonly known as "pound
seizure." Current law already prohibits animals that are
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abandoned at veterinarian hospitals, kennels, pet grooming
parlors, and animal hospitals from being sold into any type of
research, but this ban does not apply to animals left in animal
shelters or pounds, where the practice is expressly allowed as
long as certain signage and notice requirements are met. This
bill will create uniformity across the state with respect to
pound seizure, because the practice is already prohibited by
local ordinance in many cities and counties.
The bill also prohibits a shelter from euthanizing animals for
the purpose of selling or transferring their carcasses to an
animal dealer-animals that presumably may be otherwise
adoptable, as they were in a recent Bakersfield scandal-while
still allowing the sale or transfer of cadavers of animals that
were euthanized under more legitimate circumstances in the
ordinary operation of the shelter. There is no known opposition
to this bill.
Analysis Prepared by:Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916)
319-2081