HOUSE BILL 446

53rd legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - first session, 2017

INTRODUCED BY

Joanne J. Ferrary

AN ACT

RELATING TO ANIMALS; AMENDING AND ENACTING SECTIONS OF THE NMSA 1978 TO PROVIDE FOR WILD HORSES.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO:

     SECTION 1. Section 17-2-38 NMSA 1978 (being Laws 1974, Chapter 83, Section 2, as amended) is amended to read:

     "17-2-38. DEFINITIONS.--As used in the Wildlife Conservation Act:

          A. "commission" means the state game commission;

          B. "director" means the director of the department of game and fish;

          C. "ecosystem" means a system of living organisms and their environment;

          D. "endangered species" means any species of fish or wildlife whose prospects of survival or recruitment within the state are in jeopardy due to any of the following factors:

                (1) the present or threatened destruction, modification or curtailment of its habitat;

                (2) overutilization for scientific, commercial or sporting purposes;

                (3) the effect of disease or predation;

                (4) other natural or man-made factors affecting its prospects of survival or recruitment within the state; or

                (5) any combination of the foregoing factors.

     [The term] "Endangered species" may also include any species of fish or wildlife appearing on the United States list of endangered native and foreign fish and wildlife as set forth in Section 4 of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 as endangered species, provided that the commission adopts those lists in whole or in part. The term shall not include any species covered by the provisions of 16 U.S.C. 1331 through 1340 (1971) and shall not include any species of the class insecta determined by the director to constitute a pest whose protection under the Wildlife Conservation Act would present an overwhelming and overriding risk to man;

          E. "investigation" means a process pursuant to Subsections B through L of Section 17-2-40 NMSA 1978 undertaken whenever the director suspects that a species may be threatened or endangered and [which] that consists of a formal review of existing data and studies and may include additional field research to determine whether a species is threatened or endangered;

          F. "land or aquatic habitat interests" means interests in real property or water rights consisting of fee simple title, easements in perpetuity, time certain easements, long-term leases and short-term leases;

          G. "management" means the collection and application of biological information for the purposes of establishing and maintaining a congruous relationship between individuals within species and populations of wildlife and the carrying capacity of their habitat. [The term] "Management" includes the entire range of activities that constitutes a full scientific resource program [of], including [but not limited to] research, census, law enforcement, propagation, acquisition or maintenance of land or aquatic habitat interests appropriate for recovery of the species; improvement and maintenance, education and related activities; [or] and protection and regulated taking;

          H. "recovery plan" means a designated program or methodology reasonably expected to lead to restoration and maintenance of a species and its habitat;

          I. "peer review panel" means an advisory panel of scientists, each of whom possesses expertise relevant to the proposed investigation and at least one of whom is a wildlife biologist, convened to review the scientific methodology for collection and analysis of data by a researcher based on commonly accepted scientific peer review;

          J. "species" means any species or subspecies;

          K. "substantial public interest" means a nonfrivolous claim indicated by a broad-based expression of public concern;

          L. "take" or "taking" means to harass, hunt, capture or kill any wildlife or attempt to do so;

          M. "threatened species" means any species that is likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range in New Mexico; the term may also include any species of fish or wildlife appearing on the United States list of endangered native and foreign fish and wildlife as set forth in Section 4 of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 as threatened species, provided that the commission adopts the list in whole or in part; and

          N. "wildlife" means any nondomestic mammal, wild horse, bird, reptile, amphibian, fish, mollusk or crustacean or any part, egg or offspring or the dead body or parts thereof."

     SECTION 2. A new section of The Livestock Code is enacted to read:

     "[NEW MATERIAL] CONSERVATION SERVICES DIVISION--ADDITIONAL DUTIES--WILD HORSE PRESUMPTION.--A horse that is not branded, tattooed, microchipped or showing other indicia of ownership shall be presumed to be a wild horse, subject to provisions of Section 77-18-5 NMSA 1978 regarding Spanish colonial descendence and subject to any applicable rules of the conservation services division of the department of game and fish, and shall be released at the place of capture by the person conducting the inspection or by the owner of the property on which the horse was captured. A wild horse shall not be considered estray for purposes of capture and sale of unclaimed estrays." 

     SECTION 3. Section 77-2-1.1 NMSA 1978 (being Laws 1993, Chapter 248, Section 2, as amended) is amended to read:

     "77-2-1.1. DEFINITIONS.--As used in The Livestock Code:

          A. "animals" or "livestock" means all domestic or domesticated animals that are used or raised on a farm or ranch, including the carcasses thereof, and exotic animals in captivity and includes horses, asses, mules, cattle, sheep, goats, swine, bison, poultry, ostriches, emus, rheas, camelids and farmed cervidae upon any land in New Mexico. "Animals" or "livestock" does not include canine or feline animals;

          B. "bill of sale" means an instrument in substantially the form specified in The Livestock Code by which the owner or the owner's authorized agent transfers to the buyer the title to animals described in the bill of sale;

          C. "bison" or "buffalo" means a bovine animal of the species bison;

          D. "board" means the New Mexico livestock board;

          E. "bond" means cash or an insurance agreement from a New Mexico licensed surety or insurance corporation pledging surety for financial loss caused to another, including certificate of deposit, letter of credit or other surety as may be approved by the grain inspection, packers and stockyards administration of the United States department of agriculture or the board;

          F. "brand" means a symbol or device in a form approved by and recorded with the board as may be sufficient to readily distinguish livestock should they become intermixed with other livestock;

          G. "brand inspector" means an inspector who is not certified as a peace officer;

          H. "carcasses" means dead or dressed bodies of livestock or parts thereof;

          I. "cattle" means animals of the genus bos, including dairy cattle, and does not include any other kind of livestock;

          J. "dairy cattle" means animals of the genus bos raised not for consumption but for dairy products and distinguished from meat breed cattle;

          K. "director" means the executive director of the board;

          L. "disease" means a communicable, infectious or contagious disease;

          M. "district" means a livestock inspection district;

          N. "estray" means livestock found running at large upon public or private lands, either fenced or unfenced, whose owner is unknown, or that is branded with a brand that is not on record in the office of the board or is a freshly branded or marked offspring not with its branded or marked mother, unless other proof of ownership is produced;

          O. "inspector" means a livestock or brand inspector;

          P. "livestock inspector" means a certified inspector who is granted full law enforcement powers for enforcement of The Livestock Code and other criminal laws relating to livestock;

          Q. "mark" means an ear tag or ownership mark that is not a brand;

          R. "meat" means the edible flesh of poultry, birds or animals sold for human consumption and includes livestock, poultry and livestock and poultry products;

          S. "mule" means a hybrid resulting from the cross of a horse and an ass; [and]

          T. "person" means an individual, firm, partnership, association, corporation or similar legal entity; and

          U. "wild horse" means an unbranded and unclaimed horse that is not livestock."

     SECTION 4. Section 77-16-1 NMSA 1978 (being Laws 1909, Chapter 70, Section 1, as amended) is amended to read:

     "77-16-1. FENCES--WHEN REQUIRED.--[Section 1.] Every gardener, farmer, planter or other person having lands or crops that would be injured by trespassing animals, including wild horses, shall make a sufficient fence about [his] the land in cultivation or other lands that may be so injured, the same to correspond with the requirements of the laws of this state prescribing and defining a legal fence."

     SECTION 5. Section 77-18-5 NMSA 1978 (being Laws 2007, Chapter 216, Section 1) is amended to read:

     "77-18-5. WILD HORSES--CONFORMATION, HISTORY AND DEOXYRIBONUCLEIC ACID TESTING--SPANISH COLONIAL HORSES--BIRTH CONTROL.--

          A. As used in this section:

                (1) "public land" does not include federal land controlled by the bureau of land management, the forest service or state trust land controlled by the state land office;

                (2) "range" means the amount of land necessary to sustain a herd of wild horses, which does not exceed its known territorial limits;

                (3) "Spanish colonial horse" means a wild horse that is descended from horses of the Spanish colonial period; and

                (4) "wild horse" means [an unclaimed horse on public land that is not an estray] a horse that shows no indicia of ownership.

          B. A wild horse that is captured on public land shall have its conformation, history and deoxyribonucleic acid tested to determine if it is a Spanish colonial horse. If it is a Spanish colonial horse, the wild horse shall be relocated to a state or private wild horse preserve created and maintained for the purpose of protecting Spanish colonial horses. If it is not a Spanish colonial horse, it shall be returned to the public land, relocated to a public or private wild horse preserve or put up for adoption by the agency on whose land the wild horse was captured.

          C. Jurisdiction and management of wild horses, including descendants of Spanish colonial horses, shall be with the conservation services division of the department of game and fish, which shall adopt rules regarding the preservation, health, safety and management of all wild horses that are not subject to federal or tribal jurisdiction. The board shall not exercise jurisdiction over wild horses except in compliance with the provisions of Chapter 77, Article 13 NMSA 1978. If the [mammal] division [of the museum of southwestern biology at the university of New Mexico] determines that a wild horse herd exceeds the number of horses that is necessary for preserving the genetic stock of the herd and for preserving and maintaining the range, it may cause control of the wild horse population through the use of birth control and may cause excess horses to be:

                (1) humanely captured and relocated to other public land or to a public or private wild horse preserve;

                (2) adopted by a qualified person for private maintenance; or

                (3) euthanized; provided that this option applies only to wild horses that are determined by a veterinarian to be crippled or otherwise unhealthy."

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