New Jersey Governor signs anti-confinement measure, signaling it’s unacceptable to employ immobilizing crates for the intelligent, sensitive animals.

TRENTON, N.J., UNITED STATES, July 27, 2023/EINPresswire.com/ -- Animal Wellness Action, the Animal Wellness Foundation, and the Center for a Humane Economy applauded Governor Phil Murphy for signing into law the latest state ban on extreme confinement of breeding sows. The measure passed the Senate some weeks ago 35 to 1 and passed the Assembly by a count of 73-1. New Jersey is the 11th state to adopt an anti-gestation crate policy.

S. 1298/A.1970, which also bans immobilizing crates for veal calves, was sponsored by Sen. Vin Gopal and Assemblyman Raj Mukherji, and the animal wellness organizations extended thanks to them for their humane-minded leadership.

The legislative action comes in the wake of a May ruling from the Supreme Court of the United States upholding California’s Prop 12, which not only affords breeding sows and veal calves minimum space requirements, but also restricts the sale of pork that comes from factory farms featuring extreme confinement. Some Midwest lawmakers in Congress have now introduced legislation, dubbed the Exposing Agriculture Trade Suppression Act, H.R. 4417 and S. 2019, to repeal any state laws that restrict agricultural commerce, including Prop 12 passed in 2018 and a similar measure passed by Massachusetts voters two years prior.

Animal Wellness Action and hundreds of other animal welfare, food safety, states’ rights, and other organizations have announced their opposition to that ill-considered, anti-democratic legislation in Congress.

“We must move past the era of immobilizing animals for years on end as a customary animal-rearing strategy,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy. “Immobilization is a form of punishment and torment, not a responsible way to raise animals.”

Breeding pigs may spend up to three years intensively confined in a crate barely larger than the animal, resulting in extreme physical and psychological torment. The sow may weigh 300-600 pounds, and the 2-by-7 crate immobilizes her, inhibiting her from even turning around or taking more than a half step. Pigs raised for meat are not kept in these restrictive crates.

“Confining sows in crates that immobilize them is demonstrably inhumane and there are widely accepted and applied alternative housing methods,” said Jim Keen, D.V.M., Ph.D., the director of veterinary sciences for the Center for a Humane Economy. Dr. Keen served on the faculty at the University of Nebraska College of Veterinary Medicine and also worked for USDA for 20 years at the National Meat Animal Research Center.

“Keeping a sow in a two-foot-wide crate is akin to stuffing a large-bodied animal in a tiny little closet and never letting her out,” said Thomas Pool, D.V.M., the senior veterinarian with Animal Wellness Action. A retired Colonel in the U.S. Army, Dr. Pool grew up on a cattle ranch outside of Lawton, Okla. and served as the commander of the Army Veterinary Command.

Related to the New Jersey news, a national bill was recently introduced, the Pigs in Gestation Stalls (PIGS) Act, H.R. 2939, to ban the extreme confinement of mother pigs in gestation crates.

Almost every major food retailer in the United States — from McDonald’s to Costco to Aramark — has made a pledge to phase out sourcing pork from factory farms that confine sows in gestation crates, with most pledges originally set to take effect in 2022. Voters have approved all five ballot measures in four states to ban the use of gestation crates in Arizona (2006), California (two separate ballot initiatives in 2008 and 2018), Florida (2002), and Massachusetts (2016). Major pig-producing states, including Colorado, Michigan, and Ohio, are phasing out gestation crates by law.

Animal Wellness Action is a Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(4) whose mission is to help animals by promoting laws and regulations at federal, state and local levels that forbid cruelty to all animals. The group also works to enforce existing anti-cruelty and wildlife protection laws. Animal Wellness Action believes helping animals helps us all. Twitter: @AWAction_News

Center for a Humane Economy is a Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(3) whose mission is to help animals by helping forge a more humane economic order. The first organization of its kind in the animal protection movement, the Center encourages businesses to honor their social responsibilities in a culture where consumers, investors, and other key stakeholders abhor cruelty and the degradation of the environment and embrace innovation as a means of eliminating both. The Center believes helping animals helps us all. Twitter: @TheHumaneCenter

Animal Wellness Foundation is a Los Angeles-based private charitable organization whose mission is to help animals by making veterinary care available to everyone with a pet, regardless of economic ability. The Foundation advocates for getting veterinarians to the front lines of the animal welfare movement; promoting responsible pet ownership; and vaccinating animals against infectious diseases such as distemper. The Animal Wellness Foundation believes helping animals helps us all.

WAYNE PACELLE
ANIMAL WELLNESS ACTION
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