Humane Society International applauds Miami-based Carnival Corporation – the world’s largest cruise company – for improving farm animal welfare by working to eliminate controversial pig gestation crates from its pork supply chain. The tiny cages are used to virtually immobilize breeding pigs.

“Carnival Corporation & plc supports the pork industry’s movement away from gestation crates and will work to ensure that our own pork supply is free of these cages by 2022,” James Van Langen, vice president of management systems for Carnival Corporation & plc.

“People care about the way animals are treated, and simply don’t support the lifelong confinement of pigs in cages so small they can’t even turn around. It’s both an ethical decision and smart business move for Carnival to recognize that,” stated Elissa Lane, campaign manager for HSI Farm Animals. “Humane Society International supports Carnival’s progress and looks forward to working with corporations in Costa Rica and throughout Latin America on similar policies.”

Similar announcements were made recently by McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Chili’s, Costco, Subway, Denny’s and more than 30 other leading food companies in the United States. In the Costa Rican pig industry, breeding pigs are frequently confined day and night in gestation crates during their four-month pregnancy. These cages are roughly the same size as the animals’ bodies and designed to prevent them from even turning around. The animals are subsequently transferred into another crate to give birth, re-impregnated, and put back into a gestation crate. This happens pregnancy after pregnancy for their entire lives, adding up to years of virtual immobilization. This confinement system has come under fire from veterinarians, farmers, animal welfare advocates, animal scientists, consumers, and more.

Facts

Nine U.S. states, New Zealand, and the Australian state of Tasmania have laws prohibiting the confinement of breeding sows. This practice, for all except the first four weeks of pregnancy, will also be prohibited throughout the EU starting in 2013.

Renowned animal welfare scientist and advisor to the pork industry, Temple Grandin, Ph.D., is clear on this issue:

“Confining an animal for most of its life in a box in which it is not able to turn around does not provide a decent life.” Grandin further states, “We’ve got to treat animals right, and the gestation stalls have got to go.”

Leading pork producers Smithfield and Hormel have pledged to end the use of gestation crates at their company-owned facilities in the U.S. by 2017, and Cargill is already 50 percent crate-free.

Media contact

Cynthia Dent, HSI, [email protected], 2283-1706

Humane Society International and its partner organizations together constitute one of the world’s largest animal protection organizations—backed by 11 million people. For nearly 20 years, HSI has been fighting for the protection of all animals through advocacy, education, and hands-on programs.

Celebrating animals and confronting cruelty worldwide—on the Web at hsi.org.