In 2007, state legislatures passed 86 new laws to protect animals. Louisiana and New Mexico became the last two states to ban cockfighting. Illinois shut down the nation’s only operating horse slaughter plant. There were bills on animal cruelty, disaster planning, exotic pets, Internet hunting, and other subjects. And there were path-breaking issues, as Oregon’s state legislature became the first to ban confinement of breeding pigs in gestation crates, and New York’s became the first to ban the electrocution of animals on fur farms and require the labeling of all fur-trimmed garments.
These advances were made because we have lawmakers in all 50 states who champion bills to protect animals. Among all the other important policy issues they face, these individuals have found the time and the heart to recognize that animals matter, too, and that animal issues are worthy of their time and talents in the public policy arena.
We were saddened to lose one of our leaders, when Maryland’s Democratic Sen. Gwendolyn T. Britt passed away over the weekend. Sen. Britt was a longtime civil rights advocate, but she was also a leader in the fight for animals. She was the main sponsor of two animal protection bills last year, seeking to ban gestation crates in factory farming and ban the use of steel-jawed leghold traps and wire neck snares for recreational trapping and commerce in fur pelts. Before her death, she was preparing to introduce a bill in the 2008 session to require the labeling of fur apparel, to protect consumers from being deceived into buying animal fur that’s falsely advertised as “faux,” and a separate bill to ban the force-feeding of ducks and geese in order to fatten their livers for foie gras.
Sen. Britt was a great advocate and public servant, and she exemplified the best of the human spirit. The people and animals of Maryland are better off because she chose to spend her time and use her skills in the legislative arena.
As we lose some of our leaders in state lawmaking for animals, we look to new leaders to carry the mantle. I was heartened last week to see a new bill on a new issue introduced in Indiana. State Rep. David A. Wolkins, the top Republican on the House Environmental Affairs Committee, introduced legislation to stop the stocking of tame pheasants for “put-and-take” hunting. Although at least 19 states raise hundreds of thousands of exotic pheasants in factory farms and release them for sport hunters, it’s not a subject that has often come up in state legislation. Thanks to Rep. Wolkins, it could become another path-breaking reform for animal protection.
Ring-necked pheasants are native to China, and don’t occur naturally in the United States. The birds are hand-raised in boxes and pens, and don’t develop any survival skills. Often their beaks are cut off and blinders are placed over their eyes to prevent them from pecking each other. State wildlife agencies release the birds by the truckloads and hunters line up in parking lots waiting for the delivery of these tame targets. The pheasants are almost certain not to survive the hunting season: If they somehow manage not to get shot, they die of starvation or exposure to the elements.
Even the National Park Service stocks tame pheasants, which was the subject of a successful lawsuit by The Humane Society of the United States and The Fund for Animals that halted the practice on Cape Cod for the last four years. Vice President Dick Cheney famously gunned down dozens of stocked pheasants at a captive hunting ranch in Pennsylvania, and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee shot a pheasant with the television cameras in tow just days before the Iowa caucuses.
Hunting enthusiasts usually justify their sport by pointing out a management necessity such as controlling wildlife populations. But there’s no compelling need to breed birds in factory farms and release them in parks or fields to be shot, knowing they can’t fend for themselves. It flies in the face of wildlife management and any hunter with an ethic of sportsmanship and fair chase would no sooner shoot an egg-laying hen.
It’s a worthy subject for legislation, and a common-sense reform that we hope to see advanced in other states. Legislative success requires the right policy issues and the right leadership—in the animal protection movement, we’re fortunate to have both.
