WASHINGTON — Animal rights advocates are urging the government to enforce a law on livestock haulers that would require them to unload live animals and feed them every 28 hours while in transit.

The Humane Society of the United States, Farm Sanctuary, Compassion Over Killing, and Animals’ Angels-animal advocacy organizations, filed a legal petition calling on the US Department of Agriculture to amend its regulations to limit truck transport of animals as required by the federal “Twenty-Eight Hour Law.”

Although 95 percent of all animals transported in the US are shipped by truck, the USDA’s regulation is outdated as it only applies to transport by train, the groups complain.

Watch For Resting Animals: You may have to if animal rights groups get their way

Enacted in 1873 as the “Act to Prevent Cruelty to Animals while in Transit by Railroad or Other Means,” (commonly referred to as the Twenty-Eight Hour Law), the Act requires that for every 28-hour period of confinement in interstate transport, animals be allowed at least 5 hours of rest, during which time they are offloaded and provided with food and water.

“Given the industry’s reliance on trucks as the primary means of transporting animals, the USDA’s failure to apply the Twenty-Eight Hour Law to trucks renders the act virtually useless,” said Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive officer of The HSUS.

“Transporting farm animals for 28 or more hours without rest, food, or water is clearly inhumane, and the USDA’s failure to place any time limit whatsoever on truck transport is indefensible. If the USDA doesn’t understand the definition of ‘truck,’ we would be happy to send over a dictionary.”

The group claims that each year, millions of animals are denied rest and food, and are injured on longhaul trucking routes. In a report, the group cites instances of “customary cruelties” on animals transported by truck, including:

Dead animals left onboard trucks for more than 30 hours among live animals; animals enduring temperatures exceeding 90 degree temperatures; animals denied food, drinking water and a chance to rest; and animals suffering numerous injuries, including, bruises and abrasions on their bodies.

In their challenge, the groups add that the longer the animals are confined — particularly under the stress of crowded transport conditions — the greater the risk of spreading disease. Given the highly contagious nature of some livestock and poultry diseases, long-distance animal transport poses a serious threat to public health, the groups insist.

Neil Olson, dispatch manager at Lloyd Hutton Transport, a cattle hauler in Paisley, Ont., says such a law would severely inconvenience longhaul livestock truckers. Furthermore, Olson tells TodaysTrucking.com the proposed law is unnecessary, as most livestock carriers take good care of the animals they’re transporting, and less scrupulous transport providers that are negligent are already subject to current animal cruelty laws.

Even if one takes the added costs and current hours-of-service rules out of the equation, wonders Olson, where would drivers store a herd of cattle or pigs for five hours while on the road? “Just to find a facility where you can offload will be extremely difficult,” according to Olson, who says the company’s longest haul into the US is close to 28 hours.

An opportunity for animal reststops in the middle of the Nevada desert, perhaps?

“Yeah right,” he laughs. “Just image that.”