The 2018 legislative session ended on May 9.  Many animal bills made it farther than usual in the legislative process, especially for a short session.  The results were mixed:  some good bills are now headed to the Governor’s Office for signature, two important bills never made it through the Senate, even after passing the House by overwhelming margins, and one bill still has us fighting as CVA members ask the Governor to veto the Sunday bow hunting bill.   At the center of the action was YOU.  Your letters, emails and calls demonstrate to legislators that there are thousands of compassionate people in Connecticut who care about animals and who vote.  It’s a powerful message and key to making progress for animals.  Here’s a run-down of the major legislative initiatives for the 2018 legislative session that concern animals: Passed: Good Samaritan Protections for persons removing an animal from a car if the animal is in “imminent danger of serious bodily injury” passed. This long-overdue law can be found in HB 5312, Section 22 and is like the Good Samaritan protections available when removing children in imminent danger from cars.  Read Section 22 here to see the criteria which must be met when removing an animal: Good Samaritan Law  The law becomes effective October 1, 2018 Defeated: Black Bear Hunting in CT was defeated in the Environment Committee by a vote of 29 to 8. CVA was a strong voice against this bill as well as Night Hunting of Coyotes (SB348) which had a hearing with no further action taken.  Passed: Establishment of an Animal Abuse Registry (SB523) of people convicted of both felony and misdemeanor animal cruelty charges. The publicly available registry will go into effect only if there is separate funding. The new law requires some refinements to ensure it doesn’t result in unintended consequences of reducing the number of convictions, a pattern found with other registries.   CVA will monitor this law and recommend changes as needed.    Defeated: A bill to address the State’s dog bite law which contained a somewhat biased working group failed to get a Senate vote before the session ended. CVA worked hard to protect against breed specific discriminatory recommendations and to add experts in the fields of animal behavior and training to ensure that the bill would create fair and humane recommendations to fix the State’s broken dog bite laws.