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The Columbus Dispatch...
Vote on veal calves
might trigger statewide referendum after all
Decision
reneges on animal-welfare agreement, Humane Society says
By Alan Johnson
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
The Humane Society of the U.S. is threatening to relaunch a statewide
ballot campaign after a state panel yesterday reneged on part of an
agreement reached last year.
The Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board, a state panel created by a
2009 constitutional amendment, voted yesterday on a standard for
confining veal calves “in crates so small they’re unable to turn around
for more than half of their lives before slaughter,” Wayne Pacelle,
president and chief executive officers of the Humane Society, said in a
statement.
The vote jeopardizes “a carefully crafted animal welfare agreement
reached last June between the Humane Society and eight leading
agricultural trade organizations, including the Ohio Farm Bureau
Federation,” Pacelle said.
Opposing the veal confinement standard, in a 7-5 board vote, were Ohio
Agriculture Director Jim Zehringer and Dr. Tony Forshey, state
veterinarian.
Last year, the Humane Society gathered signatures of more than 500,000
Ohioans to put a livestock-care standards issue on the statewide
ballot. But the group pulled back after then-Gov. Ted Strickland
brokered a deal between the society and the Ohio Farm Bureau and eight
other agriculture organizations.
However, the petition signatures remain valid and could be submitted
for a ballot issue this year or next year.
That could be avoided, Pacelle said, if the board revisits the issue
and passes a rule consistent with the 2010 agreement, which called for
veal calves to be raised in cages large enough for them to turn around
instead of confining cages now used. Calves raised for veal are
slaughtered at 16 to 20 weeks of age.
Pacelle said if the board “guts that provision ... we will have little
choice but to renew the effort for a ballot initiative that we had
hoped had been averted.”
Read the story at The Columbus Dispatch
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