Congress Has a Chance to Strike a Blow Against Horse Slaughter

horse slaughter

I am a horse owner and yes I have bought and sold at horse auctions. The point I want to make is since the slaughter plants have closed, the horse industry and peoples livelyhoods have suffered tremendously. A horse has and always will be livestock. I say reopen the slaughter operations. People all over the world eat horsemeat and always will. The only thing the closers have accomplished is more suffering for the horse and less money for horse owners.

Instead of converging on Captiol Hill, covering Breakfast meetings, and writing these ridiculous editorials, why not put your time to use by rescuing one of those unwanted, unhandled, slaughterbound horses yourself and breaking it or paying someone else to break it? You can then give it a "forever home".

Then instead of the writing the same old tired rhetoric, and being part of the problem, you can actually use this space to teach, and become part of the solution.

Are we a civilized country?

Thank you Anne, nice response.

"Hypothetically speaking, lets say there was a species above us, that was smarter than us, and they treated us the way in which we treat the species below us, what would that say about them?? (Would you say they were civilized? Like we claim ourselves to be?)

Kim Nahla

creating the unwanted horse problem

Dear Leigh Haney,

Thank you for that enlightening response. Enlightening to the fact that people like you are the very cause of the unwanted horse problem. You breed and breed and breed, only to keep the ones that compliment your bloodlines and send the rest to slaughter, or sell them cheaply where they eventually dwindle down to the slaughter pipeline. How convenient for you that you do not need to learn to breed according to tru market demand.

You know very well that all horses going to slaughter are not unwanted horses, because you admit yourself that you breed them just to bring them to slaughter if they do not satisfy your standards. You know very well that killer buyers want the strong, the healthy and the young, aka the perfectly adoptable ones, because this is the most tender meat and fetches them the highest price per pound. They leave the meek, weak and injured for society to deal with.

You know very well that the tru amount of unwanted horses is more like 30,000

You know very well that is only costs 200 to euthanize a horse, and your horses earn you more than that over their lifetime. Do they not earn their own euthanazia, for everything they do for you?

It is because people like you exist, with a lack of everything that makes a human human, that we need a federal ban.

If you do not now what compassion feels like, it is only natural that you are a very unhappy unfulfilled person. I feel sorry for your wife, your children, your parents, your pets, your horses, for you live only for yourself and feel the right to use every thing and every one else. You deserve your unhappiness 100%, you selfish selfish human being.

Sincerely,

Anne

Horses May be Tasty

To say that eating horses is wrong is ethnocentric and bigoted. Who are you to say what should and should not be eaten? If I were to single out a specific group, based on ethnicity or lifestyle choice, and decry them as wrong for their beliefs or actions, I would be publicly vilified, yet anti-horse eaters do this with supreme confidence that they are in the right. I don't care if it is primarily a European thing or not. Given that we are one big happy melting pot over here, there are doubtless a few folks living within our borders that would love to be able to pick up a horse haunch at the local market. Who are you to say they shouldn't? This desire to protect horses is born of anthropomorphism, no more, no less. We have all seen Flicka or National Velvet one too many times. Consider this, if I told you that I had a pet chicken, and that I felt consumption of chicken was morally reprehensible, should I make an attempt to have all chicken processors shut down? Would you champion my cause as vehemently as you have tried to protect horses?

Horse Slaughter

I wonder where all the horses are going to go. Who is going to feed the unwanted, useless horses that only slaughter has found a place for in the past years. How long before there is no room for all the wild horses that no one wants to see put down. Heck even in the old days Indians were smart enough to use the horse when it was not useful to ride anymore by eating it. As long as I have to pay livestock tax on my horses then I should have the right to say what happens to them.. THEY ARE LIVESTOCK. they are not pets. You all need to look at the big picture. Where are we going to put all the horses that you have a vet put down? Do you think that the Dumps are going to be open to take them after a year? NO.. 100,000 more horses are going to be needing a place to go.. in your back yard or in the dump and that is only the fist year. I will not stop breeding my horses just because you dumb people cant seem to pull your head out of your butts. I have worked for over 25 years to get this bloodline and its one of the best. Not your or anyone is going to stop me from making sure the bloodline stays.. and if i get one that needs to be sent to slaughter.. then its going. even if I have to take it up to the slaughter house myself and tell them to kill cut and wrap it up. You will not tell me what i can and can not eat. or how i get my food.

you are the sick people. you are the ones that think you can tell people what they can and can not do.

YOU ARE NOT MY KEEPER...

horse slaughter

I am totally against horse slaughter........not only because of the suffering and pain that these majestic animals go thru but because it is written in the Bible that only the animals with cloven hooves, which are the split hooves like the cows have, can be killed for meat. The horse DOES NOT have split hooves and therefore SHOULD NOT be slaughtered for meat. These are the words from our Heavenly Father Himself....I don't pity the souls of the people that slaughter and abuse these precious horses or any animal. When they meet their Creator, they will have to answer for their greediness in killing His horses for profit. He will have the last word.

Freedom of Information Evidence-Cruelty for Profit

Many writers above totally "get it." Horse slaughter is a demand-driven industry we don't need. It's never been about disposing of so-called "unwanted horses." It's about filling foreign quotas, period.

Horse slaughter numbers go up and down on the consumer economy overseas. Numbers are down this year - thankfully - from the slow economy overseas and upscale price of horse.

Slaughter lobbyists complain about "abandoned horses" yet most stories turn out to be false. The foreign plants will only buy what they know they can sell. It doesn't take an MBA to see the "unwanted horse" myth doesn't even pass the smell test.

Bring horse slaughter back to the US? If you yearn for those not-so-good old days, please read the Freedom of Information (FOIA) documents released by the Federal Government last November. FOIA evidence online: www.kaufmanzoning.net

If you can stomach it, the FOIA evidence proves how brutal the trip to slaughter was. You can see for yourself how cruelly the horses were treated during their final hours, even with USDA inspectors there. You'll see how, to legally slaughter horses in the US again, we'd have to repeal Federal laws protecting animals from extreme cruelty. The American people will not support that.

Horse slaughter plants and kill buyers routinely violated the Humane Slaughter Act. Veterinary students witnessed extreme brutality, including multiple stunnings and awake dismemberment. That's against the law. That's why America closed the last plants in 2007 and why we want the Federal bill to pass this session.

According to the USDA documents, low-paid workers, mainly undocumented, were pushed to butcher horses as fast as possible. Horses were often awake. They panicked and broke their backs trying to escape. Mares delivered foals on the kill floor. Shipping full-term mares was illegal but it happened all the time. Violations of pollution and public health laws were common. This corporate greed only survived behind closed doors. The FOIA evidence changed all that.

Finally, there's the moral issue of knowingly selling contaminated meat as folks wrote above. Like China's melamine scam, the US is selling food laced with drugs specifically banned, like Bute and wormers. Race horses with EPOs, anabolic steroids, Lasix, pain killers, even cobra venom. From stable to table in 7 days - no withdrawal period, unlike cattle and animals traditionally raised for food in the US. We owe our trading partners overseas the same healthy food we'd want for our own families.

When the law passes, markets will adjust like they always do. Less over-breeding, abuse and neglect and thousands fewer horses stolen each year. Instead of searching for stolen horses in the slaughter pipeline and responding to last minute calls from kill pens, we can use the energy to address puppy mill over breeding (like the Paragallo Thoroughbred abuse case) provide for responsible retirement and humane euthanasia when needed.

Consequences

Thanks for your suggestions, concern and desire to enlighten me. I'll try to do the same for you.

Have you considered you may have the cart before the horse? Rather than impose a blind gut at the end of the horse factory which is in high production (legally) would it not have made more sense to decrease production first? You could have avoided a lot of pain and suffering if you had.

Oh, I forgot, this is the U.S. of A., with a Constitution, Bill of Rights, Amendments and such. Well, that can be gotten around. Just get Congress to criminalize horse transportation. That will convince us to shoot and bury.

Closing slaughter plants abruptly threw a monkey wrench in the works. Kudos to you. You have one-upped Rahm Emanuel who famously said of the auto industry debacle: “Rule one: Never allow a crisis to go to waste. They are opportunities to do big things.” He looks like a piker, just an opportunist with a ready-made crisis. You created a crisis and work it well.

I heard the company that makes Crocs, those popular,colorful foam shoes, lost $185M last year and dropped 2,000 jobs. Part of their trouble besides the economy downturn was the debt they incurred to ramp up production to keep up with demand and... the darn things don't wear out fast enough. Victims of their own success it would seem and their crystal ball was cloudy. At least they didn't have a brick wall at the end of the conveyor belt to clog things up. There's always euthanasia, jail time, fines to make them into repentant solid citizens. (- tongue-in-cheek)

Response to Consequences

Response to Consequences

Point #1 (Losing value):

The economy began to tank well before last fall. If your horses have lost 90% of their value it’s time to either upgrade your stock or stop producing. The same is true if you need a slaughter market to determine your horses’ worth.

Point #2 (Registrations):

a) Registrations have only marginally decreased. The AQHA continues to lead with new US registrations in 2007 and 2008 of 135,780 and 136,924 respectively. The APHA reported new registrations of 35,032 in 2007 and 29,534 in 2008. The Jockey Club continues to register in excess of 33,000 foals each year. These three registries alone account for over 405,000 equines in the last two years alone. Keep in mind that these figures obviously do not represent breeders who have not purchased registration papers.

b) In 1989 well over 300,000 horses were shipped to slaughter, yet you were still able to find a home for your 22 year old stud. Believe it or not, yes I do care. My condolences for your losses. It’s never easy to say the last goodbye. I also commend you for making the decision to not ship to slaughter. A well-placed bullet causes instant death and lethal injection was, and still is, a humane alternative. Shipping to slaughter would have required a horrifying trailer ride, having your trusted companion forced into a kill box and struck repeatedly with a captive bolt gun. There is also a 10% chance that your horse would have been alive when vivisection began as the USDA allows a 10% ‘margin of error’. Does this sound like an appropriate send off for a horse that you trusted, trusted you and you made money off of? I hardly think so.

c) “What you well-meaning folks fail to understand is that you have taken something living and breathing that had value and made it valueless.”

‘We’ didn’t make it valueless. WE consider that value extends beyond financial gain. How much was that stud of yours ‘worth’ to the little girl he took care of? Wasn’t he worthy or deserving of a quick and painless death when his time came?

Point #3 (General beliefs):

a) No, we don’t live in the land of butterflies and rainbows. We realize and accept that homes will not be found for every horse. We believe that euthanasia by lethal injection or a well-place gun shot is, and always will be, humane alternatives whereas slaughter never was and never will be. With regard to economic incentive (aka financial entitlement) since when are we guaranteed a minimum value on any of our property? Considering that homes, cars, IRA’s, 401(k)’s, stocks, bonds and everything else one can think of continues to lose value, why should equines be singled out and a demand made for a minimum value? Why not demand that homes can only lose 5% of their assessed value. Why not demand that a truck purchased for $30,000 today be worth $25,000 five years from now.

b) No, you didn’t say the foals were yours. You just pointed out that you had studs and broodmares. I’m sure no foals resulted.

c) “We are stewards of this creation. We are charged with its care.“

Exactly. As a steward and care giver it is your responsibility to provide a humane death which again, does not include a trailer ride to a horrific death in a slaughter plant.

d) AVMA:

Regardless of the AVMA’s acceptance of the use of a captive bolt gun, apparently veterinarians are against this practice. This is evidenced by the fact that veterinarians carry lethal solutions (and sometimes a firearm) NOT a captive bolt gun. The AVMA also endorses electrocution.

e) I will never support the slaughter of horses regardless of any tax structure.