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New Jersey Supreme Court to Hear Appeal in Landmark Case Addressing Farm Animal Welfare

Broad Coalition Challenges Appellate Court's Ruling Upholding Cruel Factory Farm Abuses as "Humane"

TRENTON, NJ - July 11, 2007 - The New Jersey Supreme Court has granted a petition to hear a landmark case challenging the state's "humane" standards for the treatment of farm animals. The decision was applauded by the broad coalition of humane organizations, farmers, veterinarians, and environmental and consumer groups, who petitioned the court in April 2007 to reverse a lower court's February 16, 2007 ruling upholding the New Jersey Department of Agriculture's (NJDA) approval of some of the most egregious factory farm abuses as "humane." The appeal goes beyond any previous legal action taken on behalf of farm animals in that it seeks a judicial declaration that many common factory farming practices are inhumane under New Jersey law.

"By hearing our appeal the court has chosen to examine the New Jersey Department of Agriculture's endorsement of cruelty to animals as a standard business practice," said Gene Baur, president of Farm Sanctuary. "As the only state in the union that requires a code of humane standards for farm animals, New Jersey has an opportunity to improve the quality of life for the state's farm animals, while influencing humane measures nationwide."

In 2004, this coalition of groups and individuals filed suit in the Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey alleging that the New Jersey Department of Agriculture has failed to establish standards of treatment of farm animals that are "humane" -as required by the New Jersey Legislature in 1996-and has instead sanctioned numerous inhumane practices used to raise animals for meat, eggs and milk on industrialized farms.

The groups include Farm Sanctuary, The Humane Society of the United States, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, The New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Animal Welfare Institute, Animal Welfare Advocacy, Save Our Resources Today, Center for Food Safety, and the Organic Consumers Association, among others.

"The New Jersey Supreme Court's decision to hear this case highlights the increasing importance of farm animal welfare across the country," said Jonathan R. Lovvorn, vice president of animal protection litigation for The HSUS. "People are no longer willing to just accept industry claims that factory farming practices are somehow 'humane,' and we don't think the Court will either."

New Jersey's "humane" regulations permit numerous inhumane farming practices, including:

• Confining pregnant pigs for months at a time in gestation crates, individual metal stalls too small for them to turn around
• Tethering and restrictively confining calves raised for veal until they are sent to slaughter.
• Mutilations without anesthesia, including castration, de-beaking, de-toeing and tail docking.

In 1996, the New Jersey Legislature directed the NJDA to develop appropriate "standards for the humane raising, keeping, care, treatment, marketing, and sale of domestic livestock." By law, these regulations were supposed to protect farm animals from the most egregious industrialized farming practices.

Eight years later, on June 7, 2004, the agency finalized regulations that specifically authorize many cruel farming practices, and also broadly exempt all other "routine" agricultural practices, essentially codifying inhumane practices that the New Jersey Legislature sought to prevent.

The organizations are represented by the public interest law firms Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal, Washington, D.C., and Egert & Trakinski, Hackensack, N.J. More information about the New Jersey lawsuit can be found at njfarms.org.

Farm Sanctuary is the nation's leading farm animal protection organization with over 150,000 members and supporters. Since incorporating in 1986, Farm Sanctuary has worked to expose and stop cruel practices of the "food animal" industry through research and investigations, legal and institutional reforms, public awareness projects, youth education, and direct rescue and refuge efforts. www.farmsanctuary.org.

The Humane Society of the United States is the nation's largest animal protection organization-backed by 10 million Americans, or one of every 30. For more than a half-century, The HSUS has been fighting for the protection of all animals through advocacy, education, and hands-on programs. Celebrating animals and confronting cruelty-On the web at HumaneSociety.org.

Founded in 1866, the ASPCA® (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals®) was the first humane organization established in the Western Hemisphere and today has one million supporters. The ASPCA's mission is to provide effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals throughout the United States.