click to enlarge - Courtesy
- Lark Thompson with Willow, a goat she rescued
Lark Thompson heard desperate cries coming from a dark Charlotte farm on Ferry Road late one night in July 2022.
When she went to investigate, dozens of emaciated, bleating goats desperate for food and water swarmed her. Thompson, who was then 22 and house-sitting at a neighboring property, did the best she could to comfort the animals but was ill-equipped and overwhelmed.
"I showed up the next morning and found four dead baby goats," Thompson told lawmakers in February. "That's when I realized I needed to call some people."
The experience was Thompson's first exposure to what animal welfare advocates say is Vermont's confusing, fragmented and ultimately ineffectual system of responding to complaints of animal cruelty and neglect.
Thompson recounted how she contacted state police and was told to call the town's animal control officer. She phoned the number she was given, but it was answered by a retired animal control officer living in Florida. She visited town hall and was told Charlotte's animal control officer deals only with dogs. Someone directed her to the state veterinarian.
Thompson eventually reached a field specialist at the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, who said he couldn't do anything until law enforcement received a formal complaint.
The situation dragged on for months and was complicated by communication issues between the landowner and farmer, who was raising the goats for meat. Ultimately, Thompson convinced the owner to let her find new homes for some of the sickest goats, including four that went to a Charlotte animal sanctuary called Merrymac Farm Sanctuary. The owner of the goats was never charged.
But the case and the media attention it garnered helped drive a push in the Statehouse this year to create a Division of Animal Welfare. The House passed the bill, H.626, last week, and the Senate could take it up soon.
"I'm really glad something has come of it," Thompson told Seven Days last week.
Some lawmakers say it's long past time for the state to take charge of animal welfare complaints to ensure they are handled effectively. Thompson's experience is common, they say, with no one taking responsibility despite years of complaints and efforts to provide accountability.
"An animal welfare bill in some form has been floating around the Statehouse for two decades," Rep. Chea Waters Evans (D-Charlotte) told Seven Days last week.
The problem is complicated because communities handle animal complaints differently. Some towns have an animal control officer, while others don't. Various police agencies — local, state or county sheriff's departments — serve different towns. And responses can differ if the animals are livestock versus pets.
"There is no parent here," Waters Evans said. "There is no state agency or department that is particularly enthusiastic about taking charge of this."
That's still true today, even with a bill pending in the legislature. Officials from the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets; the Department of Fish & Wildlife; and the Department of Public Safety all testified that they don't think their organizations should become responsible for a central Division of Animal Welfare without significant additional funding.
"This is a little bit of a hot potato that no one wants to take ownership of," Rep. Jim Harrison (R-Chittenden) told colleagues, echoing Waters Evans' observation.
click to enlarge - Kevin Mccallum ©️ Seven Days
- Rep. Chea Waters Evans
The bill calls for the animal welfare division to launch in 2025 and for the public safety commissioner to appoint a director of animal welfare. The start date was initially in 2024, but the Department of Public Safety asked for a delay, noting that it already has 54 open positions and would need time to hire the right person.
The director's salary would be financed by a $2 increase in state dog licensing fees, which is expected to raise about $140,000. The new director would have eight months to write a comprehensive report detailing how to coordinate responses to complaints, how to ensure animals are properly cared for and how to fund it all.
The Department of Public Safety has already looked into the current state of animal welfare rules and regulations — and didn't like what it saw. The department released a 218-page report last year that found the state has "a very fragmented and ineffective system for ensuring the humane and proper treatment of animals and the protection of the health and safety of Vermonters."
"The buck really stops with no one person or agency," the Report on Unification of Animal Welfare and Related Public Safety Functions said. It called for the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets to oversee the new division because of its expertise in the health and welfare of livestock.
But that makes no sense to Erika Holm, the chair of the Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board, which has advised state officials on animal welfare since 2019. There are already plenty of laws about the treatment of animals, and ultimately, she said, it is a law enforcement issue.
"We have a huge problem in the state right now with animal cruelty cases not being investigated properly or well," Holm said.
Since fall 2022, some of that work has fallen to wardens from the Department of Fish & Wildlife, who have helped state police investigate nearly 240 such cases. Wardens are doing an excellent job in this expanded role, Fish & Wildlife Commissioner Chris Herrick said, though he acknowledged that it's not something they are primarily trained to do.
The bill currently in the Senate is less comprehensive than the one initially proposed. That version would have licensed rescue organizations to ensure the animals in their care are not subject to further neglect. It also would have regulated organizations that bring animals into Vermont for adoption. There has been a "huge explosion" in adoptions from other states, according to Holm. But those adoptions can bring diseases to Vermont and can lead more people to drop dogs and cats at local shelters when they don't work out.
Lawmakers stripped the bill of those measures, according to Rep. Waters Evans, because of concerns about the workload it would put on a brand-new department.
The bill's path in the Senate remains uncertain. It's late in the legislative session for a measure to head from the House to the Senate for the first time, something House Republicans groused about. But Sen. Ruth Hardy (D-Addison) told Seven Days that she intends to ask leadership to allow her Government Operations Committee to take it up this week.
Sen. Anne Watson (D/P-Washington), who serves on Hardy's committee, said she wants a crack at it.
"What kind of society do we want to live in?" Watson said. "Are Vermonters, especially those who own animals, willing to pay a little bit more for the safety and security of animals across the state? I think it's a reasonable ask."