FIGHTING FOR FACTORY-FARMED HENS AND HOGS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1999:

The German Supreme Court in
Karlsruhe ruled on July 6 that laws already on the
books require poultry farmers to give egg-laying
hens much more space than either the minimum set
by regulation in 1987 or the enlarged
minimum––about twice as big––which is to be phased
into effect by 2003 under a June directive from the
European Union. The EU directive would also end
battery caging entirely by 2012; the German verdict
says, in effect, “Do it now.” Wrote the judges, “It is
generally the case that no one may inflict pain, suffering,
or damage on an animal without good reason”––and,
by implication, they held the mere maintenance
of profitability to be not good reason.

The Humane Farming Association,
Concerned Rosebud Area Citizens, and the South
Dakota Peace and Justice Center have joined in an
appeal parallel to one filed by the U.S. Department
of Justice, seeking to overturn a March 2 injunction
issued by U.S. District Judge Charles Kornmann
which blocks the Bureau of Indian Affairs from halting
the construction of an 859,000-pig intensive confinement
farm on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in
Mellette County, South Dakota. BIA chief Kevin
Gover in January voided hog farmer Richard Bell’s
lease of the property, agreeing with opponents of the
farm that permits had improperly been is