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Committee weighs SB96 to protect 'working animals'; cities warn language is too broad
Summary
SB96 would limit local ordinances that ban or create 'undue hardship' for defined working animals; sponsor framed bill around guardian livestock uses, while the Montana League of Cities and Towns and several cities said the definition is vague and could prohibit regulation of exotic-animal exhibitions and urban animal control.
Senator John Fuller introduced Senate Bill 96 as a measure to protect the use of working animals and to prevent local ordinances that would "terminate, ban, effectively ban, or create undue hardship relating to the job or use of a working animal," as the sponsor read the bill's operative section.
Fuller described an origin story involving a sheep producer who used livestock guardian animals to protect flocks from predators and said the bill's definition of working animals "means a non human animal used for the purpose of performing a…
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