United States-Slap in the face for animal rights.

UNITED STATES-TIME FOR ANIMAL RIGHTS PEOPLE TO GET REAL.

Representatives of the Ohio Pork Producers Council, along with representatives from other Ohio livestock and poultry industry groups met with representatives of the Humane Society of the United States this week in Columbus. HSUS asked the groups to have dialogue on the elimination of gestation stalls for sows, veal crates and cages for layers through legislation in an effort to avoid a ballot initiative in Ohio.

"At the request of the Humane Society of the United States and with the initial involvement of the Ohio Farm Bureau, I attended a meeting (Tuesday) with representatives of HSUS on behalf of my members," said Dick Isler, executive vice president of the Ohio Pork Producers Council. "The Ohio Pork Producers Council’s participation in this meeting was solely to listen to HSUS. Ohio hog farmers work every day to ensure the well-being of their animals and provide a safe, nutritious, affordable food supply for consumers."

In an apparent effort to extend the success of California’s Proposition 2 ballot passed last year in that state, HSUS is attempting to advance the group’s agenda in other agricultural states. On Tuesday, Feb. 10, a bill initiated by HSUS was introduced in the Illinois Senate that would ban the use of gestation stalls in Illinois.

The legislation is similar to the ballot initiatives banning the use of gestation stalls, stalls for veal calves, and battery cages for egg laying hens that have passed in California, Arizona, and Florida. The proposed legislation in Illinois would become effective Jan. 1, 2010.

U.S. District Judge Lawrence J. O’Neill has ruled that pigs can be slaughtered for food even if too weak or stressed to stand according to an Associated Press report in the Los Angeles Daily News. A state law banning the slaughter of downer animals was written last year after an animal rights group recorded abuse at a California slaughterhouse.

The ruling made on Thursday says that a 102-year-old federal food safety law supersedes the California law. The old law allows pigs too sick to stand to be slaughtered under certain conditions.

The finding raised immediate concern from animal welfare groups. "This challenge to California law is a stunning example of the meat industry’s utter disregard for animal suffering and public safety," according to Bradley Miller, national director of the Humane Farming Association. Other animal welfare groups vowed to appeal the ruling saying it endangers the nation’s food supply.

The Humane Society of the United States, Farm Sanctuary and the Animal Legal Defense Fund, said the ruling could lead to the slaughter of sick and injured animals Faced with a food industry hit by health scares, leading Chinese information and game portal Netease.com is going the whole hog - by raising pigs and documenting the porkers’ journey from farm to fork for all the online world to see.