As multiple animal protection bills are advancing in the final weeks of the 2025 legislative session, we think it only right to shine a spotlight on the awesome animal advocates who attended Animal Protection Lobby Day (February 27th) and helped moved those bills along.
Numbers are helpful at painting the picture, and here’s what we saw at Animal Protection Lobby Day 2025:
- Fifty constituents from across the state, acting as top-level and engaged advocates, joined us in Santa Fe to lobby legislators on the humane treatment of animals. Nine of those folks were “walk-ins” who registered on the spot. “Walk-ins” are always welcome at Animal Protection Lobby Day—never hesitate to invite your friends, family, and colleagues to join you next time!
- Advocates, who represented 20 House Districts and 17 Senate districts, conducted a total of 37 meetings with lawmakers and key staff in legislative offices.
- An astounding 118 hand-written and personalized letters detailing constituent support for animal protection bills were also delivered to legislators’ offices.
- Five handwritten thank you cards expressing deep gratitude to bill sponsors were delivered directly to legislators.
After legislative office visits, advocates joined APV allies and bill sponsors in the Capitol Rotunda to hear some inspiring words from press conference speakers.
Bill sponsors Rep. Tara Lujan (HD 48) and Rep. Cynthia Borrego (HD 17) spoke on the need for House Bill 113 funding to support public health and safety, as well as the deep connection people feel towards their companion animals.
Related to that same theme of considering companion animals as “family,” Senator Antoinette Sedillo Lopez (SD 16), joined by MaryEllen Garcia, Executive Director of the New Mexico Coalition Against Domestic Violence, spoke on the need to better protect both animals and people by codifying the right to include animals in orders of protection for those experiencing family violence via Senate Bill 26. That same bill would update New Mexico law to recognize that harming or threatening to harm someone’s animals in order to harass or coerce someone is a form of abuse.
Turning to the animals that roam free on New Mexico landscapes, Rep. Matthew McQueen (HD 50) explained how his bill would empower the state to utilize the best available science to manage wild and free-roaming horses. House Bill 284 would update current law by utilizing experts to humanely manage those horses through land carrying capacity studies, fertility control, and relocation, when necessary, to prevent horses from starving and further degradation of the lands where they graze.
Representative McQueen is also a lead sponsor of Senate Bill 5, which would reform the Department of Game & Fish and the Game Commission (which oversees the Department) so that both have the expertise, authority, and funding to manage New Mexico’s extraordinary biodiversity and habitats.
Speaking on the merits of Senate Bill 358 to create a trust fund as a new funding mechanism for the public services provided by the state’s equine shelters, Mark Preiss, the Executive Director of Walkin’ N Circles Ranch, Inc. Horse Rescue, explained how his organization—along with the other equine shelters that take in abused and abandoned horses—provide both quality of life for those horses and essential services to the state. Horses live long lives— often 30 years or more—and the work equine shelters do to rehabilitate them helps both individual equines and our state’s economy.
Finally, we heard from longtime activist and actor Ali MacGraw, who praised the advocates for giving of their time and energy and encouraged them not to let Lobby Day be the last action they took for animals. Said Ms. MacGraw, “We have the possibility to make life livable, healthy, respected, and hopeful for all forms of life…. you are the leaders in this”. These were truly inspiring words to round out a special day of advocacy at the Roundhouse for the animals.
Very soon, we will share more detailed information on the progress of animal protection bills during this session, so please stay tuned. We know firsthand the difference your voices make at the Capitol. Thank you for your deep engagement in this powerful work!
Photos: Heidi Baxter/APNM
