Postsecondary education: animal research.

Existing law establishes a state policy that no adoptable animal should be euthanized if it can be adopted into a suitable home. Existing law authorizes the State Department of Public Health to prescribe rules under which approval shall be granted to persons who wish to keep or use animals for diagnostic purposes, education, or research. Existing law authorizes the State Department of Public Health to make, promulgate, modify, amend, or rescind reasonable rules and regulations relating to the use of animals in diagnostic procedures and medical research. A person who violates these provisions is guilty of a misdemeanor. Existing law establishes the University of California, the California State University, and the California Community Colleges, and independent institutions of higher education, as defined, as the 4 segments of postsecondary education in this state. This bill would require any public postsecondary educational institution, as defined, to include any campus of the University of California, California State University, or California Community Colleges, or independent institution of higher education, or employee or student thereof, that confines dogs or cats for science or research purposes and intends to destroy the dog or cat used for those purposes to first offer the dog or cat to an animal adoption organization or animal rescue organization, as defined. The bill would not apply to animals suffering from a serious illness or severe injury, or to newborn animals that need maternal care and have been impounded without their mothers.