Posted: Thursday, March 04, 2010 10:00 AM
Legislation would create livestock care board
In a measure aimed at protecting Idaho livestock producers from initiatives by animal rights activists, Sen. Tim Corder, R-Mountain Home, has introduced a bill to create a 13-member Idaho Livestock Care Standards Board.
The director of the Idaho State Department of Agriculture would serve as chairman of the board, which would establish proposed standards governing the care and wellbeing of livestock and poultry in the state.
"The key thing with these bills is to try to take the emotions out of the equation and hopefully make determinations based on fact," said Carl Ellsworth, Idaho Cattle Association president.
The board would be authorized to establish proposed standards and submit them to the Department of Agriculture, which would be authorized to write rules reflecting the standards.
The bill directs the board to consider such factors as best management practices, biosecurity, disease prevention, animal morbidity and mortality data, food-safety practices and the protection of local, affordable food supplies for consumers.
Idaho State Veterinarian Bill Barton said the bill mirrors a measure that established the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board last year.
That measure was meant to deter animal rights groups from initiating a referendum similar to California's Proposition 2, which addressed chicken cages and hog gestation pens. The measure passed last year.
"Proposition 2 was a referendum vote. HSUS used all its dollars to go to the public," Barton said.
The Humane Society of the United States doesn't seem to be deterred by Ohio's vote to establish the livestock standards board. The group has just been certified by the Ohio Ballot Board to circulate petitions to get a livestock housing and slaughter measure on the ballot this fall.
Barton said he's not sure establishing a board in Idaho is necessary.
"I'll leave that up to the Legislature to decide," he said. "It's a sensitive deal. Whatever the Legislature deems appropriate we will implement."
At the Idaho Cattle Convention in November, Corder told producers it's only a matter of time before animal rights groups come calling in Idaho, and agriculture must be ready. The senator has also introduced a bill to overhaul the state's animal cruelty statutes and another to add "equines" to Idaho code regarding humane slaughter.
-- Carol Ryan Dumas
Online
S1331: www.legislature.idaho.gov/legislation/2010/S1331.htm
Comments made about this article
Posted By: Suzanne Moore On: 3/5/2010
Title: Horse Slaughter
The vast majority of those who oppose horse slaughter are NOT "animal rights activists," we eat beef ourselves, we have nothing against agriculture, ranchers or other agribusinesses. Horses are NOT classified as food animals in the US. We just want to keep it that way. We are not even PETA-wannabe sympathizers, because their radical ideas discredit OUR goals which are totally different from theirs.
In relation to slaughtering horses - is Mr. Coder not aware that American horses are not fit for human consumption, and as such will no longer be accepted for export to the EU? If not, he should familiarize himself with the new rules the EU has put into place, and that will be enforced starting in April 2010. For more information: http://www.vetsforequinewelfare.org/medications.php
This will apply to ANY processing facility - Canada, Mexico, US - that plans to export to the European Union, which of course where the market is. I truly do not feel that opening slaughter houses for horses is a workable idea for anyone.
One last reminder - please do not shoot yourselves in the foot by lumping everyone who advocates for humane treatment of animals into the radical category. We are your allies against these fringe dwellers. Don't kick us to the curb.