Which states updated or enacted bestiality laws since 2023, and what penalties did they adopt?

1. The core question: what actually changed in 2023 — confirmed cases

The clearest change documented in the provided reporting is New Mexico’s 2023 enactment of a statute defining bestiality and related offenses, with the statutory text and history showing the offense and a specific penalty class — including that promoting bestiality is a fourth-degree felony under the new statute ^[2] — and the Animal Legal Defense Fund explicitly lists New Mexico and the District of Columbia as jurisdictions that enacted prohibitions for the first time in 2023 ^[1].

2. What the advocacy trackers say about the national sweep

Advocacy organizations and legal compilations show a broad trend—by some counts all states except West Virginia had statutory bans by 2023, and the Animal Legal Defense Fund’s 2023 reporting framed New Mexico and D.C. as the last additions that year ^{[1] [3]}. However, a later ALDF state rankings page (May 2025) lists five states lacking sexual-assault-of-animals laws (Hawaii, Kentucky, New Mexico, West Virginia, Wyoming), revealing a discrepancy between ALDF publications and suggesting either differing definitions or updates in their datasets across 2023–2025 ^[4].

3. Penalty patterns and variability across states

State laws vary widely: some label bestiality a misdemeanor while others treat it as a felony, and several jurisdictions increase the severity—upgrading to felony—where coercion, injury, juvenile involvement, or prior convictions are present ^[3]. New Mexico’s statute is a concrete example from the 2023 cohort: besides defining the underlying offense, it criminalizes promoting bestiality as a fourth-degree felony, illustrating that recent statutes often include both primary and ancillary offense categories with felony exposure ^[2].

4. Conflicting reports and why the record is messy

The supplied sources contradict on which states remained without explicit statutes after 2023: some pieces assert only West Virginia lacked a ban (reflecting a popular headline), others list multiple holdouts including New Mexico and Wyoming as late as 2025 ^{[1] [4]}. Part of this friction comes from differences in how sources classify “explicit” bestiality bans versus prosecutable conduct under general animal-cruelty, obscenity, or public-morals statutes; legal trackers and advocacy groups use different cut‑offs and update cadences, producing divergent lists ^{[3] [5]}.

5. What can be concluded from the supplied reporting

From the documentation provided, New Mexico and the District of Columbia are the most reliably reported enactments in 2023, with New Mexico’s statute showing a concrete penalty scheme that includes a fourth‑degree felony for promotion of bestiality ^{[1] [2]}. Beyond that, the sources document a national trend toward near-universal criminalization but disagree about the remaining exceptions and about when Wyoming, Nevada, or West Virginia enacted or revised their laws, so the supplied reporting does not permit an authoritative, state-by-state post‑2023 catalog without consulting updated legislative records or state codes ^{[3] [6] [4]}.

6. Why the reader should care and where the data gaps are

Advocacy groups like the Animal Legal Defense Fund shape the public narrative and maintain datasets that show pressure to close legal gaps, but their snapshots can differ over time and by methodology ^{[1] [4]}; researchers should therefore cross‑check state statutes and official session laws for precise effective dates and penalty classes. The supplied materials establish the legislative trend and give a specific New Mexico penalty example, but they leave unresolved which other states enacted or amended bestiality statutes since 2023 and what exact penalties those states adopted ^{[3] [2]}.