District 40 State Senator Ken Rozenboom has been accused by California-based animal rescue activists of animal neglect at a farm he owns near Oskaloosa.
Matt Johnson, an Iowa native with Direct Action Everywhere, entered a hog farm owned by Rozenboom and his brother near Oskaloosa in April 2019 without permission, and recorded video and photos of pigs in poor health. The group filed a complaint this week with the Mahaska County Sheriff’s Office and the Iowa Department of Agriculture.
“Inside the barns, investigators documented months-old piglets suffering bloody rectal prolapses and intense overcrowding. They came across one piglet who was unable to stand, and gasped for air while thrashing wildly for several minutes, before eventually dying,” the group said in a statement.
Rozenboom said in an interview with 92.1 KRLS News that the activist group was performing a “hit job” in direct response to a bill he helped pass in 2019 that increased penalties for people who use deception to gain access to farms for undercover investigations, and is currently being contested in courts. Rozenboom says his family had started to take over management of the barns before they knew about the investigation because of their concerns over the practices ongoing in the facilities he and his brother were leasing to other operators, and that his company, Rosewood Pork, now has more direct control of operations.
“The pictures indicate careless animal husbandry practices that violate acceptable animal care protocols, the very protocols that our family has carefully followed during a lifetime of animal care. What we saw in the pictures is not OK, and we took immediate steps to learn why this had occurred,” he said in a statement.
“It is important to note that these barns had been leased to another family farm operation several years ago, and were managed by them in April of 2019. At the time that this undercover investigation took place, Rosewood had no role in the management of the barns, had no ownership of the pigs, and had no employees who worked there.”
Rozenboom says there was a respiratory illness that caused many of the symptoms shown and acknowledged that proper care protocols were not being followed, but denied there’s evidence of neglect or abuse. Rozenboom plans to file charges of trespassing with the Mahaska County Sheriff’s Office.
Johnson and his group delayed release of a video and several photos to press outlets in both Iowa and nationally through the Associated Press, to avoid accusations of contaminating the barn and harming animals, which Rozenboom countered in his statement was a direct possibility.
Full press release from Rozenboom:
DxE-Press-Release
Full interview with Rozenboom:
Video from Direct Action Everywhere (WARNING, VIDEO MAY BE DISTURBING TO SOME VIEWERS):