Source: MIL-OSI Submissions
Source: SAFE NZ
SAFE and the New Zealand Animal Law Association (NZALA) will appear in court today. They will demonstrate that farrowing crates violate the Animal Welfare Act 1999.
By filing legal proceedings, SAFE and NZALA wish to compel the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (NAWAC) and the Minister of Agriculture to act lawfully, to improve their legal procedures and to adopt a more robust legal understanding of their duties. They filed proceedings in February last year.
SAFE CEO Debra Ashton says, “This is a historic case. It’s the first time a Code of Welfare has been challenged in court.”
Ashton says this case is about giving mother pigs the freedom to live more natural lives and respecting them as sentient, instead of treating them as simply ‘units of production.’
NZALA’s president Saar Cohen says “NZALA believes that NAWAC and MPI have a legal duty to phase-out farrowing crates, a duty which they have both failed to perform. Their duty to the law must come first, before promotion of economic interests of the production sector”.
Currently nearly half of mother pigs on New Zealand farms spend over three months of each year confined in a cage too small for them to turn around or nurse their baby piglets properly.
On multiple occasions, NAWAC has stated that the use of farrowing crates should be phased out.
SAFE is New Zealand’s leading animal rights organisation.
We’re working towards a world where animals are understood and respected in such a way that they are no longer exploited, abused or made to suffer.
– SAFE submitted a petition in March 2018, which was signed by over 112,000 people who all wanted farrowing crates to be banned.
– The Animal Welfare Act 1999 clearly states that all animals should have the ‘opportunity to display normal patterns of behaviour.’
– The National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (NAWAC) 2010 Code of Welfare (Pigs) states that it “considers that the confining of sows in farrowing crates for extended periods does not fully meet the obligations of the Act.”
– The Animal Welfare (Care and Procedures) Regulations 2018 state that sows can be confined in a stall for one week after mating (regulation 27), then confined again in a farrowing crate five days before they give birth and up to five weeks after they give birth (regulation 26).
– The Animal Welfare (Care and Procedures) Regulations 2018 came into force in October 2018. They were reviewed and written under the previous National-led Government.
