On Tuesday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the California Egg Bill into law. The legislation sets standards, as January 1, 2015, for the housing of hens for egg production.
As noted in the LA Times, the chickens will need to be able to “stand up, fully extend their limbs, lie down and fully extend their wings without touching each other or the sides of cages.”
The Humane Society of the US strong supports this new law, along with the passage of the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, which is on the books after an important vote from the people of California.
Again, these are minimum standards and I’m not sure how anyone could see the conditions these animals have lived under and not think the chickens – and other animals – need to be treated more humanely.
Posted by D Gary Grady on July 8, 2010 at 9:55 pm
Someone I know in Los Angeles — someone in most respects quite sensible — is apparently on some mailing lists of crank emails from animal welfare opponents. He told me he was vehemently opposed to the Prevention of Farm Cruelty Act, saying that it would impose all sort of bizarre and impossible requirements on farmers. I found the text on line and emailed him a link to it and asked him to point out where I could find the provisions he claimed were there. He never replied, but I hoped he had learned his lesson about believing propaganda.
Then about six months later he announced that a bill requiring spaying and neutering of many cats and dogs was deliberately designed by animal rights fanatics to make pet dogs and cats extinct. Again I checked the text, including every revised version that had ever been considered, and of course none of the supposed horrors he claimed were in the bill were to be found. In addition, he parroted a highly doctored quote the head of an animal protection organization he’d seen somewhere. I easily found the actual quote on line. He is yet to reply to the emails in which I (politely) pointed these things out.
It’s troubling when political debates are based not on honest differences of opinion but rather on out-and-out falsehoods.