Senate Panel Delays Vote on Bill to Protect Veal Calves

When most people order veal parmigiana in a restaurant, they don’t think about how the calves that supplied the meat were raised.

“Approximately 60,000 of the 325,000 calves in California raised for veal (will be) chained in veal crates this year,” said Bradley Miller, executive Director of the Humane Farming Assn., an animal rights group. “They can’t walk, turn around. When they lie down they must keep their legs crunched underneath them.”

In addition, Miller said, the calves are fed large doses of antibiotics to counteract the stress of being confined and the anemic state the calves must be kept in to maintain the whiteness of the meat prized by veal lovers. The association and other groups worry that the antibiotics might be passed to the consumer.

Efforts to change the conditions under which calves are raised stalled Tuesday after Assemblyman Tom Bates (D-Oakland) asked the Senate Judiciary Committee to delay action on a bill that would require larger living spaces for veal calves. The bill has been rescheduled for a hearing April 5.

The measure already had passed the Assembly by a narrow margin and has the support of such celebrities as radio personality Casey Kasem and stage actress Gretchen Wyler, as well as animal rights groups, including the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

“I’m here to see if we can’t convince these senators that if they learn the truth they’ll vote their conscience and they’ll realize that it’s a torturous way to live, “ Kasem told reporters Tuesday. “If they could just imagine their dog or their cat having to live that way minute by minute, hour by hour, month by month, I am sure they would vote their conscience and pass this bill.”

Bates said he decided to delay a vote on his bill because of the length of the committee’s agenda. A lengthy debate on another bill would have prevented Bates’ main witness from testifying and prevented Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles), a likely supporter, from voting on the bill.

Bates’ bill has encountered sharp opposition, not only from the veal industry, but also from the California Farm Bureau and the state Department of Food and Agriculture. For the most part, opposition has focused on whether the Legislature has the right to control animal husbandry practices and whether existing law governing the veal industry is strong enough.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Food and Agriculture, Janice Strong, said that there is no problem with the veal industry in California. The calves, she said, are “not suffering, (are) well fed and well tended to.”

“It’s not true that they can’t lie down in their pens,” said Strong, adding that calves usually lie down with their legs “folded under them like cats.”

Reed Heritage, of the California Farm Bureau, said, “Our people have been told that in a loose pen (a larger pen with several animals kept inside) there is more opportunity for disease to go back and forth, and that’s when they would need higher medication.”

Both the Department of Food and Agriculture and the California Farm Bureau have maintained that the use of antibiotics is well regulated. Antibiotics must be stopped by the veal producer 45 days before slaughter, Heritage said, and the veal is inspected at random to determine the levels of antibiotics.

Miller, of the Humane Farming Assn., said in support of the bill: “The most important vote people can make on this issue is the vote they can cast in a restaurant or supermarket.”