COSTA MESA : High School Makes Farm More Secure

Costa Mesa High School officials have agreed, at the suggestion of an animal rights group, to make the agricultural area of the campus safer in response to the sexual assault of a calf in June.

Orange County People for Animals, the activist group that protested the treatment of animals at the Orange County Fair’s rodeo and at a circus in the Anaheim Convention Center, asked high school officials to secure some fences around the animals and make it more difficult to get into the 11-acre farm.

“We can’t electrify the fences or put three strands of barbed wire over the top of the fence,” said Vice Principal Larry Carlson. “But we have agreed to make some physical changes on our premises.”

Workers have installed gates and locks on some of the pens and gotten rid of objects that could be used as step stools to get over fences.

In addition, the school has hired a full-time, live-in caretaker. The former caretaker had resigned and was not on the campus when the calf was assaulted.

The calf, valued at about $1,500, was sexually assaulted with an object and so severely injured that it had to be destroyed.

Police have not arrested anyone in connection with the assault, which occurred about June 20.

One of the animal rights group’s strongest concerns--that the calf was not given painkillers because it was to be sent to the butcher--will be discussed in a meeting with school district officials, Carlson said. Under state law, it is illegal to dispense drugs to an animal prior to slaughter for human consumption.

Orange County People for Animals wants the school to draft a policy that would require farmhands to consider an animal’s suffering before other interests. However, a formal policy would have to be taken up by the Newport-Mesa Unified School District board, Carlson said.

During the school year, students raise sheep, pigs, chickens, rabbits and, occasionally, calves in an agricultural program. Most of the animals are exhibited and sold at the Orange County Fair; some, though, are left at the school over the summer.