[Green-Activist] Pregnant pigs deserve to be treated humanely ~ cruelty to animals transcends politics

Fri Nov 16 15:46:04 EST 2007

I support the disallowance of the barbaric Pig Code - 21 November 2007.
Cruelty to our fellow creatures on a massive industrial scale degrades our
society more and more each year.  Their suffering increases as our
activities intensify and we become similarly cruel and callous to each
other.  Furthermore I have noted that more and more water is dedicated to
the expansion of these depraved practices in Victoria, at great cost to
human progress.  We are in fact already maintaining concentration camps for
animals on an industrial scale, and, as the letter below points out, quite
unnecessarily.   Growth economics are cruel and wasteful economics.  Ours is
a cruel and wasteful society.  If we must eat other obviously sentient
creatures, could we not pay them respect and treat them well before they
die? 

Sheila Newman

Population, Environment and Land-Use Planning Sociologist

www.candobetter.org/sheila

   _____  

From: Maryland Wilson [mailto:kangaroo at peninsula.hotkey.net.au] 
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2007 3:50 PM
To: neil.burgess at parliament.vic.gov.au;
bruce.atkinson at parliament.vic.gov.au; candy.broad at parliament.vic.gov.au;
Andrea Coote; richard.dalla-riva at parliament.vic.gov.au;
kaye.darveniza at parliament.vic.gov.au; David Davis; Philip Ag resources
Davis; damian.drum at parliament.vic.gov.au;
khalil.eideh at parliament.vic.gov.au; nazih.elasmar at parliament.vic.gov.au;
bernie.finn at parliament.vic.gov.au; matthew.guy at parliament.vic.gov.au; Peter
Hall; Gavin Jennings; Peter Kavanagh; david.koch at parliament.vic.gov.au;
jan.kronberg at parliament.vic.gov.au; shaun.leane at parliament.vic.gov.au;
john.lenders at parliament.vic.gov.au; wendy.lovell at parliament.vic.gov.au;
Justin Madden; jenny.mikakos at parliament.vic.gov.au;
edward.o'donohue at parliament.vic.gov.au; martin.pakula at parliament.vic.gov.au;
donna.petrovich at parliament.vic.gov.au; inga.peulich at parliament.vic.gov.au;
jaala.pulford at parliament.vic.gov.au;
gordon.rich-phillips at parliament.vic.gov.au;
johan.scheffer at parliament.vic.gov.au; robert.smith at parliament.vic.gov.au;
adem.somyurek at parliament.vic.gov.au; brian.tee at parliament.vic.gov.au;
theo.theophanous at parliament.vic.gov.au; evan.thornley at parliament.vic.gov.au;
gayle.tierney at parliament.vic.gov.au; matthew.viney at parliament.vic.gov.au;
john.vogels at parliament.vic.gov.au
Subject: Pregnant pigs deserve to be treated humanely ~ cruelty to animals
transcends politics

Dear Members of the Victorian Parliament,

I know that when you realise how badly pregnant sows are treated, you will
want to improve their plight. 

            Our Victorian parliamentarians  must stop supporting cruelty to
pigs

                        Your VOTE to the proposed disallowance of the Pig
Code – 21 November 2007

On Wednesday 21 November 2007, The Hon. Sue Pennecuik MP will lay a motion
before the Legislative Council to disallow the ‘Model Code of Practice for
the welfare of animals – Pigs (revised)’. This Code was produced by the
Federal Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (under Minister
McGauran) and adopted by Minister Joe Helper on 20 April 2007, without
debate by any Parliament or Party.

On 21 November, for the first time in Australia’s parliamentary history, you
will be asked to exercise a vote of conscience in relation to the abysmal
practices being undertaken, on a large scale, within Victoria’s intensive
piggeries. 

As your constituent, I ask that you please vote in favour of the motion for
disallowance, thus supporting sound animal husbandry in this State, and
setting an example for others to follow. 

It is important to point out that  this example has already  been set by
legislatures in the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union
and New Zealand, so as you can see Australia LAGS FAR BEHIND.

The proposed Code allows breeding sows to be confined within dry sow stalls
and farrowing crates for around 5 months at a stretch, until April 2017;
after which, their period of confinement would be reduced to around 3 months
at a stretch. With at least two such confinements expected during the course
of a year (pigs produce an average of 2.3 litters, per annum), the mental
health consequences for sows under this regime are horrific. Notably, the
proposed Code removes any reference to minimum size requirements for sow
stalls constructed before 2012, after which, size requirements only apply to
newly constructed stalls. This represents a direct regression in welfare,
from the existing Code.

Are you aware that pigs have personalities and intellectual abilities
closely equivalent to dogs?

They suffer profoundly when confined over long periods within
concrete-floored, metal-barred stalls in which they cannot turn, nor take
more than one step forward or backward.  Within these stalls and crates,
they  have nothing to alleviate their boredom or to practise their strongly
instinctive, gestational nesting behaviours. 

Like human beings held in long-term solitary confinement, pigs in sow stalls
and farrowing crates soon develop abnormal, repetitive behaviours, such as
bar-biting, and head-swaying, which are indicative of their distress. 

The extreme suffering of the 300,000 (or so) intensively farmed pigs in
Victoria, is completely unnecessary.

In 2006, the Pastoral Pork Company, producer of ‘Otway Pork’, Victoria's
largest outdoor pig producer, rearing around 56,000 pigs per year in large
straw-based shelters  was among three finalists for the Victorian Royal
Agricultural Society’s ‘Alternative Farming Producer of the Year’ award. The
success of this company, and that of other free-range piggeries in Australia
(such as The Great Southern Pig Company in Albany, Western Australia) is
testament to the competitiveness and productivity of free-range piggeries; 

in this regard, I refer you to Lawyers for Animals’ August 2006 submission
to the National Pig Code Consultation, which elaborates upon the economic
rationale for ending the intensive confinement of pigs. [see:
http://lawyersforanimals.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/lfa-submission-pi
gs-ris-01-08-06.pdf]

I plead with you Neil to reject the proposed Code,  and you will signal the
need for a new Victorian Pig Code that would seek, amongst other things, to
set in place a reasonable timeline for the replacement of dry sow stalls and
farrowing crates with indoor group housing or free-range alternatives; and
would end mutilations performed without anaesthesia or pain relief (such as
teeth clipping and tail-docking). 

As our elected representatives , I urge you to please take what is the only
moral action in this matter, and to vote in favour of the motion to disallow
the proposed Pig Code.

Yours faithfully,

Maryland Wilson 

President 

Australian Wildlife Protection Council Inc

247 Flinders Lane Melbourne 3000 ~ 

at Home Hastings Electorate My Local MP is Neil Burgess

1098 Stumpy Gully Road

Moorooduc 3933 

Maryland Wilson, President
Australian Wildlife Protection Council Inc
247 Flinders Lane Melbourne, Victoria 3000
Coalition for Wildlife Corridors
03 59 788 570 ph   03 59 788 302 fax
Mobile 0417 148 501
email:  HYPERLINK
"mailto:kangaroo at peninsula.hotkey.net.au"kangaroo at peninsula.hotkey.net.au
web site: HYPERLINK "http://www.awpc.org.au"www.awpc.org.au
Registered Charity A0012224D
"The assumption that animals are without rights, and 
the illusion that our treament of them has no moral 
significance, is a positively outrageous example of
Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion
is the only guarantee of morality"
Arthur Schopenhauer 1788-1860 

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