Horse Slaughter Approved

Writing and posting articles like this wins me no friends.  From my ranching friends who think wild horses and burros need to be treated as varmints and destroyed, to other friends who think wild horses and unwanted domestic horses should be cared for until a natrual death,.....no matter what the cost.  I think the solution is in the middle.  We need a way to humanely put horses down - that means kind and gentle to yet another group of my friends who don't read nor write very well.   I wish all horses could have a fair life and a natural death, but that is just too unrealistic.  Especially in a battle for dwindling resources - land and money.  

The Associated Press is reporting that Federal officials have cleared the way for horse slaughter plants to begin operations once more by granting a Roswell, New Mexico company's application to convert it's cattle processing facility into a horse processing plant. The next step is for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to send inspectors to the plant.

While the U.S.D.A. has granted this request and have requests from other proposed horse slaughter plants in Iowa and Missouri, the U.S.D.A. is moving forward with a a push for an outright ban on horse slaughter, and the Obama administration's budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year eliminates funding for inspections of horse slaughterhouses, which would effectively reinstate a prohibition on the industry puting us right back where we started seven years ago when funding for inspectors was removed therefore shutting these plants down.

The slaughter of horses to produce meat for human consumption and dog foods is an emotional issue on both sides.

Supporters of horse slaughter stand by a Federal GAO report from 2011 that contend that horse abuse and abandonment since horse slaughter was banned have increased. Mainly from people who have a increasingly hard time with the financial burdens of horse care and management and simply have no recourse to euthanize their horses. Most people won't shoot their horses and the costs for a Veternarian call and euthanasis begin around $200.

I wrote about a big case of horse neglect here in the El Paso area some time ago. It was an atypical case where I believe a few grubby, unsrupulous people tried to turn a profit on shipping a large number of unwanted horse to Mexico for slaughter and once they ran afoul of government and animal health regulations and delays which cost them unanticipated fees for holding pens, they just turned these horses out to fend for themselves in desert areas without feed nor water. Without a horse salughter option in the U.S. we'll see more of these dirt bags in the future.

And while it would also be honest to say that people who can't afford to provide a fair life to a horse shouldn't own one, most of these horse owners don't set out mistreat horses they just get into a financial position where they can't afford to provide a fair life to a horse.

Opponents to horse slaughter point to the often inhumane treament for horse bound for domestic horse slaughter, from the sale barn, through transport to euthanizing these horses. Furthermore they point to drug laden and other wise tainted meat from these slaughtered horses. Among the opponents are the Humane Society of America, Front Range Equine Rescue and the America Wild Horse Preservation Campaign.

New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez, a self described horse lover, who I highly respect, said "creating a horse slaughter industry in New Mexico is wrong and I am strongly opposed." As much as I love horses there simply has to be a method to dispose of unwanted, unmarketable and older horses. This process has to have the priority of treating these horss fairly and humanely from sale to transport to slaughter. It is not feasible to provide natural end of life care to all these horses.

I am more so in the camp of New Mexico Land Commissioner Ray Powell, a veterinarian, who is calling on local, state and federal leaders to "work together to create solutions and provide sustainable funding to care for or humanely euthanize these unwanted horses. Continuing to ignore the plight of starving horses, creating a new horse slaughter plant, or exporting unwanted horses to Mexico won't solve this problem."

If you have seen the current situation like I have, horses jammed into stock trailers heading to Mexico for an inhumane death but not before they are starved and mal-treated, then you may start to think about horse slaughter being necessary, albeit in a humane process from start to finish.

Horses Slaughter Update

One of the reasons, maybe the main reason, I do the Functional Horseman website is that I think if more people get involved with their horses,..... learning about them, enjoying them, then not only could a few more horses have a fair life, but less of them may end up in auctions being bought by Mexican slaughter plants, since the U.S. plants closed down a number of year ago.

When horse advocates, in 2006, successfully lobbied Congress to cut funding for the required inspections of Horse Slaughter facilities, unwanted horses bought for slaughter were trucked to Mexico to be inhumanely killed.  I have routinely seen horses packed in trailers headed for Mexico.  The result these horse advocates ended up with was opposite to what they were trying to do, save horses, and caused many a horse to be killed in a very inhumane way or neglected because there was not recourse for unwanted horses. The picture above came from a local news report about one of many horse neglect cases in El Paso County, Texas.  

In my perfect world, every horses is raised from birth, cared for, give a fair life from birth to natural death. I am not advocating the raising for slaughter of horses here in the U.S. for the European horse meat market.    What I am advocating is the inspected and regulated humane death for horses.

Congress just lifted a 5-year-old ban on funding horse meat inspections, and slaughterhouses could be up and running in as little as a month. Congress lifted the ban in a continuous resolution spending bill President Obama signed into law, on November 18th, to keep the government afloat until mid-December.

The spending bill did not allocate any money to pay for horse meat inspections, which some opponents claim could cost taxpayers $3 million to $5 million a year. It does allow the U.S. Department of Agriculture to find the money in its existing budget for inspections. In the era of necessary cuts of government spending, it remains to be seen if the USDA will allocate funding and if horse slaughter facilities will again open.

While there are no slaughterhouses in the U.S. that butcher horses for human consumption now, the USDA did issue a statement saying that if one did open, it would conduct inspections to make sure federal laws were being followed. This is a confusing statement as it seemingly opens the door for slaughter plants to resume operations.

Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive of The Humane Society of the United States, stated "If plants open up in Oklahoma or Nebraska, you'll see controversy, litigation, legislative action and basically a very inhospitable environment to operate. Local opposition will emerge and you'll have tremendous controversy over slaughtering Trigger and Mr. Ed."

Well it ain't just about taking and selling the family's horse(s) to slaughter auctions. It's also about having recourse for the thousands and tens of thousands of horses that cannot be cared for, adopted or otherwise humanely euthanized. Due to the economy going south, there had been a tremendous rise in horse neglect cases, with some counties and states reporting a 60% rise in the last two years. I ask the animal activists "what is better for a horse,...to slowly starve to death or to be humanely put down?" There are many people who cannot or will not pay a Vet to come out and put down a horse.  The horse carcass disposal problems also makes it more likely that unwanted horses would be sold or given to a slaughter auction yard. 

I have actually heard people say that with the opening of horse slaughter plants, you will see people raising horses just for the meat market. Really?! How much does it cost to raise a foal to even a long yearling? My guess would be a minimum of $1,200. How the hell is a seller going to get a profit from selling horses for meat then? The only people who make a profit are the auction yard owners and buyers who buy 20 horses for $75 to $100 and sell them for $125. Hard way to make a living.

Sorry for such a long rant. As with most subjects, the truth is somewhere in the middle. I think the solutions include enhanced enforcement and punishment for people who neglect and abandon their horses. Most County Law Enforcement agencies cannot put much into resourcing for animal related crimes. Larger fines as well as using a trained and educated volunteer element would pay for itself. These fines, and jail time in some cases, can also help fund horse rescues and serve as a deterrent.

I also believe the regulated and controlled humane slaughter of horses can provide an avenue to a humane end of life for these animals when there is no other way. Beats the hell of being handled roughly, shipped to Mexico, put into a squeeze chute then stabbed in the neck and withers until the horse is paralyzed, then drug out by a chain and bleed out.