Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Animal Cruelty in Agriculture

Animal Cruelty in Agriculture
Edible Idaho Feature: 0302GH_AnimalCruelty.wav Feature 5:22 03/02/10 GH/ed
[HOST INTRO] The ethical treatment of farm animals is a growing concern for many Americans. And that puts states with relatively few animal cruelty laws, like Idaho, in the cross-hairs of animal welfare groups. It also makes those states attractive to livestock operations looking to relocate to less regulated areas. In this installment of Edible Idaho, correspondent Guy Hand explores animal welfare on the farm. (5:22 to soc out; ambient sound to 5:55; fade at will)
[HOST OUTRO] For more on this story or to listen to past Edible Idaho programs, go to northwest food news dot com.
[SCRIPT]
1. (Sounds of cattle on video)
2. Over the past few years, a nationwide stream of videos has shown dis-turbing acts of cruelty toward farm animals in the dairy, pork and poultry in-dustries. Here’s ABC’s Brian Ross:
3. (ABC News Tape / Brian Ross) According to animal rights groups, which have gone undercover to record what they say they've found across the country, unhealthy cows in filthy conditions, often subject to inhumane abuse . . .
4. (Hand) Videos have documented calves being skinned alive, piglets thrown across rooms, and baby chicks dying on factory floors. Public out-rage has pushed seven states to significantly strengthen laws governing animal cruelty in agriculture. According to Stephan Otto of The Animal Le-gal Defense Fund, Idaho is not one of them.
5. (Otto) Idaho ranks one of the worst states as far as the strength and comprehensiveness of its protection laws. For instance, Idaho does not have felony penalty available for any type of animal cruelty offense.
6. (Corder) We don’t measure by whether we have felonies, we measure by the outcome.
7. (Hand) That’s Tim Corder, Idaho state senator and chairman of the Sen-ate Agricultural Affairs Committee.
8. (Corder) The pictures that are showing up on the TV of animals being abused was in Chino California. It wasn’t Idaho. And no one has a picture of an animal like that in Idaho. So why they jump to the conclusion that because we don’t have felonies we don’t care for our animals is beyond me.
9. (Hand) Still Corder believes Idaho’s animal cruelty laws need updating. Both to reflect increasing public concern and to prepare for a likely influx of poultry facilities fleeing tighter regulations in California. Corder is working on legislation now.
10. (Corder) Part of my challenge is to get agriculture to recognize that they need to define a defensible position. For some that may mean that they have to change the way that they have been doing things to get to a position that they can defend from emotional pleas, but also on the basis of science.
11. (Hand) Corder’s legislation would increase misdemeanor penalties for animal abuse, create a Livestock Care Board and more.
12. (Corder) I think it's the most . . . well it is the most significant change that has occurred in animal cruelty laws in Idaho in years.
13. (Hand) Yet, the practices that animal rights groups want to ban — like tail docking, beak clipping, caging — are not addressed in Corder’s legisla-tion.
14. (Hand) There is nothing in any of this that is trying to restrict any of those practices? (Corder) That's true. That's true. There is nothing.
15. (Hand) One practice not banned by Senator Corder’s bill is the killing of unwanted male chicks at huge hatcheries interested only in egg-laying fe-males. Senator Corder himself estimates that one Burley, Idaho plant kills 400,000 male chicks a month. Paul Shapiro of the Humane Society for the United States says those chicks are commonly dropped alive into a grind-ing machine.
16. (Shapiro) But arguably the male chicks who get ground alive on their first day of life have it better than their sisters who spend a miserable exis-tence virtually immobilized laying eggs in battery cages.
17. (Hand) Another industry that animal welfare groups have singled out is the dairy industry. Bob Naerebout is Executive Director of the Idaho Dairymen's Association. His group supports Senator Corder’s animal wel-fare legislation. But Naerebout says animal rights groups overstate abuses.
18. (Naerebout) I thinks as a whole animal welfare issues are not a big problem in the livestock industry. Husbandry practices are preformed that have to be preformed but as far as animal abuse, no. The videos that the listeners see are exceptions, they're not the rule.
19. (Hand) But for those wary of industry’s husbandry practices or govern-mental oversight, there are alternatives.
20. (Gate opening) (Stokes) Well, lets take a walk out there. (Burns) OK (walking sounds)
21. (Hand) Rob Stokes is inspecting Janie Burn’s small sheep operation near Nampa Idaho. He works for a non-profit organization called Animal Welfare Approved. Rob Stokes:
22. (Stokes) There’s over 300 farms right now involved in the program that have come on board in the last year and a half or two.
23. (Hand) Farmers and ranchers volunteer to follow strict animal welfare guidelines that go well beyond most governmental regulations. One prac-tice Animal Welfare Approved has banned is tail docking. Rancher Burns never liked the practice anyway:
24. (Burns) It would be like taking a tiny rubber band the size of a dime and putting it on your little finger for three weeks. (Stokes) So basically it rotted off is what happens. (Burns) And the poor lambs, they flop around and they’re in pain. Well, I never liked it, so I’m very pleased that now I have a reason and there’s a scientific basis for not doing it.
25. (Hand) Farmers and ranchers who participate in these voluntary pro-grams receive certification labels. They give proof to customers that strict animal welfare standards are followed. It’s a marketing tool. But one that Burns says has a far larger goal.
26. (Burns) How we treat animals extrapolates to how we treat each other. If we treat our animals well, it improves our ability to treat other humans well.
27. (Hand) Senator Tim Corder’s animal cruelty bill is working its way through the Idaho legislature. At the same time, a new 8-million-bird poul-try processing factory is in the planning stage near Burley.
28.(Hand) In Nampa Idaho, I’m Guy Hand.