Legislative News: Bestiality Bill

By Tara Muir, the Public Policy Director of Wyoming Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault

Wyoming is one of eight states that does not prohibit the sexual assault of an animal by a human. Most people are shocked this is not a crime here yet. Some people wondered if this is really what we should be discussing in a year of budget crisis and pandemic. 

Preventing violence and the resulting trauma to the most vulnerable in our state, including animals, is critical in order to save money down the road in social services and the prison system when we don’t see the abuse as a red flag to more abuse, and future harm to animals and humans.

The link between animal and human abuse is clear and well researched.

Sweetwater County officials in Wyoming struggled with how to charge a man who was sexually assaulting horses and apparently filming it in the summer of 2020. See this article and Rep. Stith’s proposal, HB0046. This bill most likely will not even be referred to a committee to be heard until after February 22nd. In light of the Joint Agricultural Committee’s reorganization of all the animal cruelty statutes, thoughts were this may be a good time for this bill.

We hope to work with the National Animal Legal Defense Fund on this issue. They are working on an update of their model laws and matrixes of the states who have such laws. It is important to look at other states and learn from their experiences with investigating and prosecuting bestiality cases. Many abusive people force their victims to perform such acts on animals in order to keep victims compliant with demands of the abuser – usually holding the acts as shameful weapons so victims won’t report that abuse of an animal or their own abuse occurred at the hands of the abuser. Too often the acts were captured in photos or videos and used as blackmail for silence. The time is now for this bill, before more atrocities occur.