Seven pigs froze to death on a livestock trailer this winter. Five more were so frostbitten they had to be euthanized the moment the truck stopped, and three more died shortly after. They'd just spent 432 miles on the road in wind chills of –27 degrees, hauled from South Dakota to a Wisconsin slaughterhouse with no shelter from the cold.

Driver Jerith Dville Kane Ellis was just convicted in Clark County Circuit Court — the first time anyone in the U.S. has been found guilty under a state law for hauling farmed animals in conditions that killed them. It's a historic win, but it only happened because Wisconsin has a law that made it possible. Most states don't, and there's no federal law requiring truckers to protect animals from extreme heat or cold at all. The same thing could happen again tomorrow, on a different route, with no one held accountable.

Congress and the U.S. Department of Agriculture need to close this gap and require weather-based protections for animals in transport nationwide. Sign the petition to demand federal action — before more animals freeze to death with no one held responsible.