Friends,
When I think of all we at APNM and APV have been able to achieve this year for animals—and the humans who care about them—I always begin and end with you.
The conclusion of another calendar year is an apt time to think about the impact we’ve made, to rest a bit and regain our strength, and then find the fortitude to aim high for more positive change in the coming months and years. I hope that you, like me, are astounded at what we’ve achieve together over the last 12 months, even with the challenges of operating in a COVID-19 reality.
Just a Few of Our 2021 Successes
- APNM’s Protecting Horses, Donkeys, and Mules program continued its massive statewide response to equines in need throughout 2021. APNM provided emergency feed and other services to over 2,400 equines, keeping them with the families that care for them and out of the auction and horse slaughter pipeline.
- Animal Protection Voters, and advocates across the state, celebrated the milestone, hard-fought passage of Roxy’s Law to restrict traps, poisons, and snares on New Mexico’s public lands. This lifesaving new law will mean that New Mexico residents and visitors can finally safely recreate on public lands without worrying about their companion animals getting seriously injured or dying or finding maimed or dead wildlife.
- APNM’s Securing Sanctuary for Chimpanzees program refuses to forget about the estimated 35 chimpanzees still languishing in a costly laboratory facility on Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo. In early 2021, APNM, the Humane Society of the U.S. and the Humane Society Legislative Fund sued the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for violating The Chimp Act, which requires chimps used in invasive experiments be able to live out the balance of their lives in sanctuary. APNM is working with members of Congress to tell NIH to do their job and move these chimps.
- APNM’s numerous virtual Town Hall events conducted throughout the year shared an inside view of the challenges and momentum of so many of our programs.
- In addition to the return of in-person classes with the humane education team, eleven lessons from our popular The Animal Connection curricula are now freely available through an online learning platform (for info, contact sherry@apnm.org).
- Our determined humane education team shared their important messages of empathy, compassion for animals, helping students understand how to make a difference for animals in their everyday lives.
- For the second year in a row, APNM’s Promoting Plant-Based Eating program partnered with local organizations to provide fresh, locally sourced produce and nutritious comfort foods to families experiencing food insecurity.
- And throughout 2021, APNM created dozens of useful and entertaining podcasts, delivered online cooking classes, influenced restaurant menu options, and published Spanish and English versions of APNM’s Plant-Based Eating Starter Guide.
Heartfelt Thanks To You All
When we’ve needed you to raise your voice to help us ensure stronger laws for animals get passed at the New Mexico Legislature, you’ve been there.
When we’ve asked you to help us respond to a drastically greater need for services to help animals thrive during the COVID-19 pandemic, you came through with financial support.
When we asked you to spread the word to your friends, neighbors, and co-workers about an important animal protection campaign that needed more visibility, you’ve stepped up and made those connections on the animals’ behalf.
If you feel like you’re just one person in a big world, let me assure you of the power of your one, unwavering, caring voice. And, when your voice is added to another, and another, and another still, we have a full chorus of advocates who refuse to take no for an answer from those who prefer the status quo for animals.
Please know that regardless of how difficult the lift might seem, APNM and APV will be there for the animals who need us, and for all of you who know that a better world can be just around the corner. We know this because together we’ve proven it over and over again, because of you.
Please consider donating to APNM to help magnify the work we’re doing—and the plans we have for the future to ‘make humane the new normal in New Mexico’.
Thank you for serving as our rock, and our enduring inspiration!
With deep gratitude,
Elizabeth “Lisa” Jennings
Executive Director
Animal Protection New Mexico
Animal Protection Voters
