Arizona Voters Support Ban on Gestation Stalls

November 8, 2006 — 

Proposition 204, the Humane Treatment for Farm Animals Act, passed by a large margin in yesterday's election. Arizona voters approved the measure supported by animal activist groups such as the Humane Society of the US (HSUS) and Farm Sanctuary by a 61% to 39% majority.

The legislation would make a person guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor if he or she confines a veal calf or pig during pregnancy in a manner that prevents the animal from lying down and fully extending its limbs or turning around freely. Violators could be subject to fines of up to $20,000 and six months in prison. The initiative will take effect December 31, 2012.

Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns was unable to persuade Arizona voters either. He spoke out in support of the current housing practices during a recent visit to Arizona and related his personal experiences growing up on a hog and dairy farm in Nebraska. He noted that the common size of gestation stalls used across the country provides animals with more protection while maintaining clean food and water. Johanns said his family raised hogs in open pens and gestation stalls, and the stalls worked well. "We were a small sized operation and farrowed a dozen sows at a time. We were not a big enterprise, but there was a reason we had stalls that size," he said.

[Ed. This makes Arizona the second state in the nation to prohibit housing pregnant sows and gilts in gestation stalls. A similar measure was approved in Florida in 2002. Proposition 204 was brought to a public vote in Arizona as a citizen-directed ballot initiative as was the case in Florida. Interestingly, during yesterday's election, Florida voters approved Amendment 3 which will now require that future ballot initiatives receive at least 60 percent of the votes to pass rather than a simple 50 percent majority. The Florida legislature used the 2002 ban on gestation stalls as support for why the ballot initiative process needed revision. Florida businesses also argued that the constitution should be difficult to amend and that a simple majority should not be sufficient.

By the way, Peter Singer, Princeton professor and adamant animal welfare activist, told Time magazine this week that if the initiative works in Arizona, California would be next. "Once the Arizona initiative passes," he adds, "then the movement will roll on." We'll have to wait and see.]