Animals deserve a merciful life

April 4, 2007

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCERhttp://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/309981_facfarm03.htmlAnimals deserve a merciful life

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

By MICHAEL MARKARIANGUEST COLUMNIST

This past holiday season, millions of Americans flocked to see "Charlotte's Web," the film based on E.B. White's tale of a humble pig named Wilbur who is spared from death by a spider named Charlotte. It's a story not only about friendship but also about mercy, and doubtless led to many an uncomfortable exchange between parents and their children about the treatment of farm animals.

As it happened, that same subject was up for debate in a real-life drama in Arizona, where voters in November were asked to pass judgment on the treatment of pigs in modern factory farms. By a majority of 62 percent to 38 percent, the people of Arizona approved the Humane Treatment of Farm Animals Act, a ballot measure prohibiting the confinement of breeding pigs in tiny crates on corporate factory farms. The same protection was granted to calves raised for veal.

Something is stirring in the conscience of America -- a turning away from the cruelties of industrialized factory farming -- and the best evidence of all came in January, when the largest pork producer in the U.S. announced it would phase out the use of "gestation crates," individual stalls so restrictive that the pregnant sows confined behind their bars are unable even to turn around.

Smithfield Foods, which houses 1.2 million breeding pigs in eight states, said it would start housing sows in group pens, where they will have some freedom of movement and the ability to socialize. This overdue decision is perhaps the most monumental advance for animal welfare in the history of modern North American agribusiness.

Up to 5,000 breeding pigs here in Washington are kept in gestation crates, which are two-foot by seven-foot metal cages. The sows have a gestation period of four months, and are in the crates for nearly their entire pregnancy.

After giving birth, they are re-impregnated and forced back into the crates, enduring perhaps eight or 10 successive pregnancies in the crates before they are no longer considered "productive." They can't turn around. They can't socialize with one another. It's a life of sheer misery for those sensitive individuals -- and once you've seen the pigs in those conditions, as Colorado State University animal science professor Bernard Rollin puts it, "you'll never forget it."

The Humane Society of the United States is calling on the other major pork producers to follow their lead, and rid the entire industry of this abusive practice. And although the market is moving in the right direction, lawmakers have a responsibility to implement policy changes as well.

In Olympia, Democratic Sen. Rodney Tom and Rep. Pat Sullivan have introduced bills to require that farm animals have enough room to lie down, fully extend their limbs and turn around freely. Who could argue with that most basic of principles -- that animals should have enough room to turn around and stretch their limbs?

Just as the nation saw fit a half-century ago to pass the first humane slaughter law and give farm animals a merciful death, it's now time to give them a merciful life on the farm before they meet their end. Lawmakers and corporate decision-makers can implement these policy reforms -- because farm animals give us so much, the very least they deserve is a little bit of common decency in return.

Michael Markarian is executive vice president of The Humane Society of the United States; www.humanesociety.org.

"Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight." ~Albert Schweitzer