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

Broad Coalition Challenging New Jersey Department of Agriculture's "Humane" Standards

TRENTON, NJ-March 10, 2008 - Today, the New Jersey Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a landmark case challenging the state's "humane" standards for the treatment of farm animals. A broad coalition, led by Farm Sanctuary, of humane organizations, farmers, veterinarians, and environmental and consumer groups, petitioned the court to reverse a lower court's ruling which upheld the New Jersey Department of Agriculture's decision to approve the most egregious factory farm abuses as humane. Today the state Supreme Court will hear this monumental case, which seeks a judicial declaration that many factory farming practices can not be considered humane simply because they are widely used.

"The state legislature was specific in their intent - they charged the N.J. Department of Agriculture with the task of developing humane standards for animal agriculture practices and instead the department simply qualified factory farming practices as humane," said Julie Janovsky, director of campaigns at Farm Sanctuary. "We are simply asking the court to hold the N.J. Department of Agriculture accountable to the will of the legislature."

Many states have an exemption to their cruelty code for "commonly accepted practices" which leaves many animals confined to factory farms unprotected from abuse. However, in 1996, the New Jersey Legislature directed the N.J. Department of Agriculture to develop appropriate "standards for the humane raising, keeping, care, treatment, marketing, and sale of domestic livestock." Eight years later, on June 7, 2004, the agency finalized regulations that specifically authorize many cruel farming practices, by declaring them "not inhumane," and also exempted all other "routine" agricultural practices, essentially giving blanket protection to all agriculture practices, which the New Jersey Legislature sought to prevent.

In 2004, this coalition filed suit in the Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey alleging that the N.J. 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.

New Jersey's challenged regulations include:

• 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.

Much of the European Union already outlaws many of these practices, or is in the process of phasing them out. Florida has outlawed gestation crates, and Arizona has outlawed both gestation and veal crates. A ballot initiative is pending in California, the nation's largest agricultural state, which would outlaw gestation crates, veal crates and battery cages for egg-laying hens.

This coalition includes 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 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. 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. Farm Sanctuary shelters in Watkins Glen, N.Y., and Orland, Calif., provide lifelong care for hundreds of rescued animals, who have become ambassadors for farm animals everywhere by educating visitors about the realities of factory farming. Additional information can be found at http://www.farmsanctuary.org or by calling 607-583-2225.