Some of you may be aware of the way the USDA has attacked a family about raising a few rabbits. See here for background. I wrote my Congress critters asking for more information. Only one of them, Peter Welch, made any response on this. Recently I received this letter from our esteemed Congress critter’s office:
From: Jake.Oster@mail.house.gov [Of Peter Welch’s Office -WJ]
Subject: RE: Rabbits and the USDA
Date: July 1, 2011 12:55:56 PM EDT
To: walterj
Walter,
Of course. [I had asked him to email me instead of phone. -WJ]
I spoke to the USDA about the case yesterday. The person raising the rabbits ran afoul of the Animal Welfare Act when they sold more than 500 rabbits from their home. That level of sales requires a permit.
USDA has been in touch with the seller and agreed to excuse the fine if the seller reduced his sales below the 500 animal threshold. The resolution is still pending so none of this information if set in stone but that is the current status of the case.
I hope this helps. I am happy to provide more information if you have further questions or new developments occur in the case.
Best,
Jake Oster
……………………………….
Rep. Peter Welch (VT-AL)
My response:
From: walterj
Subject: Re: Rabbits and the USDA
Date: July 1, 2011 1:05:43 PM EDT
To: Jake.Oster@mail.house.gov [Of Peter Welch’s Office -WJ]
Thank you for explaining.
So, factory “farms” have tens of thousands or even millions of animals in horrible conditions (I’ve been to my cousin’s place many times) and their animal abuse is government sanctioned because they have the necessary “permits”.
Meanwhile a family hits some arbitrary low 500 per year threshold (41/month or 1.3/day) in sales and they’re keel-hauled by our beloved leer-less feeders. This is but one example of the sort of government corruption we need to fix.
This is a beautiful example of why we need fewer government regulations since the ones they have they’re using to abuse citizens. We need fewer regulations abusing citizens and small farmers without letting the CAFOs and Big Corps continuing to run rampant with their abuses and pollution. What can Peter Welch do to fight this?
[So there is some Independence Day news of government stomping on citizens. This case made the news. How many other cases didn’t? How many thousands more cases would there be if the government drove every back country road looking for every chicken as they literally threatened? This is exactly the sort of story I feared coming out of NAIS. If we had a National Animal Identification System it would become illegal for people to own, raise, kill and eat animals without the government’s approval. No permit, no freedom. Then the government can simply withhold permits from people they don’t like for one reason or another. This is a sure fired recipe for government abuse of the citizen that is tried and true throughout history the world over.
The USDA is still pushing for Animal ID. All they have done is change the name and push the policing more onto the states. Keep pushing back. Write your Congressional critters, your state legislators, newspapers and let them know how you feel as farmers, homesteaders and consumers. -WJ]
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[Update: See Esbee’s comment on the Bulletin Board about a post by Bungalow Bill. -WJ]