New Jersey: SPCA and owner feud

Following a story where "neglect" may be in the eye of the beholder... have not seen pics, but an older Thoroughbred, especially a stallion, is not going to look like a hog-fat halter bred QH at any stage of life.

Cruelty charges at horse farm reignite feud between SPCA, agriculture agency [link]
BRIAN T. MURRAY | Aug 25, 2008

Patrick Nelson sees nothing wrong with the two dozen or so horses he breeds at a small farm in Burlington County. They're lean, a bit bony and muscular—just how retired thoroughbreds at the "end of their line" should be, he said. An insurance broker by trade, Nelson purchases the old horses to stud them before they die. But neighbors in rural Springfield Township see things differently. They called the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals earlier this year, complaining the horses were neglected and underfed. The SPCA agreed, but agents said the state Department of Agriculture urged them to back off. SPCA officials said the department discouraged them from filing cruelty charges in February so agriculture officials could monitor the stables and deal with neighbors' concerns.

It wasn't until May, after five horses died and a foal was put down because it got stuck under a gate, that the SPCA filed charges. Now, long-simmering divisions have erupted between the two state agencies (the SPCA operates under the state Attorney General's Office), prompting a high-level sitdown today between the groups. "It could be an issue of different people seeing the same situation two different ways," said Department of Agriculture Secretary Charles Kuperus. "Tensions do occur, and different perspectives on different cases are going to continue. But we are working to minimize the number of these kinds of cases."

The SPCA has filed 44 charges of cruelty against both Nelson, 60, who lives 80 miles north of the farm in the Lake Hiawatha section of Parsippany, and his hired-hand, Dennis Cameron, 48, of Piscataway. The charges don't pertain to dead horses, but rather to 10 living ones allegedly neglected, denied food, medical care and proper shelter in recent months. "Horses die. That happens on a farm. I'm not even saying that some didn't die of natural causes here," said Frank Rizzo, superintendent of the SPCA. "But I think that if we could have written the tickets in February ... some of the animals would have lived." Rizzo accused agriculture officials of habitually standing in the way of the SPCA by threatening to testify for farmers accused of cruelty. But farmers say the problem is overzealous agents. "Farmers are reasonably concerned about groups or people who are not familiar with livestock, trying to determine what is or is not humane treatment," said Liz Thompson of the New Jersey Farm Bureau. "The SPCA doesn't specialize in livestock."

The SPCA doesn't argue that widespread animal abuse is happening on New Jersey farms. Instead, it says the problem lies with the occasional farmer who has animals and finds himself in financial trouble. "The economic downturn is putting some stress on people with all types of farm animals, but it's mostly the marginal livestock operations—people who may not be true farmers, but more like collectors," said Matt Stanton, an SPCA spokesman. The dispute between the SPCA and the agriculture department, according to officials on both sides, dates to a set of landmark regulations enacted in 2004 that called for "humane treatment" of livestock. Animal rights activists and the SPCA challenged the laws in court as inadequate. Last month, the state Supreme Court upheld the standards, but the dispute lingers and the SPCA now is in the odd position of enforcing regulations it opposed. Meanwhile, Kuperus noted, agriculture was left with an expert staff of veterinarians who had no enforcement power. Because the regulations require notification and involvement of agriculture officials, Rizzo said he is frustrated.

In the South Jersey case, things were complicated because the people charged with cruelty don't own the farm or stables. Neighbor Maggie Payne said the problems there had been going on for years, starting with dilapidated fences. "I started seeing horses where you can see their ribs, hair falling out and open wounds. Bloody, infected eyes—it's just gross," she said. She called the SPCA after filing charges against the farm owner in municipal court concerning the dilapidated property. Nelson agreed that "disrepair" of the stables was part of the problem. He said as many as five horses "got rain-rot" last winter, losing hair and weight after getting out of a shelter and not being able to get back in. "But we tried to move our horses to a new place, and the SPCA prevented it. So who is cruel here?" he said. "I have proof that those horses have been properly fed. The SPCA, the people around there—they know nothing about thoroughbreds. Thoroughbreds don't look like a pleasure horse."

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