138,000 Horses Sentenced to Slaughter Death in 2012

Wednesday December 28 2011

If we can go by last year's statistics from the US Government Accountability Office report*, which estimated 138,000 US horses were transported to Canada and Mexico for slaughter, we can expect the same number of horses to go to slaughter in 2012.

But that won't happen in this country, because even though our government just paved the way for the return of US horse slaughter by lifting the ban on funding horse meat inspections, it likely won't happen any time soon.

But is this a victory or defeat? I suggest we ask one of the 138,000 horses that will, next year, be stuffed into an overcrowded, undersized double decker that's too small for the horse to stand upright, and shipped two thousand miles with no stops for food or water, unloaded at a Mexican slaughter plant, where his spine will be stabbed with ice-picks till a near-death state, and then ultimately cut up for meat once he dies.

From 2006 through 2010, U.S. horse exports for slaughter increased by 148 percent to Canada and 660 percent to Mexico. This is approximately the same number that were slaughtered in the US before it was banned here. Do the math again: the same number of horses are now slaughtered annually in Canada and (the majority) in Mexico as were slaughtered before slaughter was banned in the US in 2007. From the same report, horse neglect and abandonment has increased since 2007.*

I don't believe that anti-slaughter people favor this slaughter option in Canada and Mexico for all these horses every year; yet I have not heard this addressed by any of the anti-slaughter groups. If you are anti-slaughter in the US, do you consider yourself pro-slaughter in Canada and Mexico? That's how it sometimes comes across. (The cruelty of the some of the horse slaughter-in-Mexico debacle has been well documented - the brutal transportation to slaughter, the agonizing deaths many horses go through - look it up on the internet, I'm not providing the links here).

The concern for slaughtered horses only seems to come up when there's a possibility of it happening here in our back yard. NIMBY - Not In My Back Yard - does this apply to our unwanted horses? We don't want to deal with the problem? By not having horse slaughter plants in the US since 2007, the problem has been out of sight and out of mind, but it still happens. Is this what we want? It seems like that is the opposite of what we want.

I ask the anti-slaughter people: do you really consider this lifting of the slaughter ban a defeat? Or is the lifting of this ban on horse slaughter an opportunity, putting in your hands the power to push for humane slaughter for over a hundred thousand horses a year?

Read this sentence: there has always been horse slaughter, and there will always be horse slaughter for over 130,000 U.S. horses a year. You can choose to not like the statement, and you can choose to ignore it if you wish, but the fact does not go away. Horse slaughter still exists.

Read it again: Over 130,000 U.S. horses a year are slaughtered and will be slaughtered, either here in the US, or in Canada and Mexico.

Personally, I would like a happy fluffy ending for every one of the excess, unwanted 138,000 horses every year year, to be cared for comfortably the rest of their lives by somebody, but it's not happening. I would like excess breeding to stop, but it's not happening. I would like all people who own horses to humanely put their horses down when the time comes, but it doesn't happen.

The Thoroughbred industry has come a long way in finally recognizing the annual plight of thousands of unwanted racehorses after their racing careers are over, and actually doing something about it, because of the hard work of so many individuals and groups advocating for the racing industry to start taking some responsibility for the horses who work so hard to make the sport and who ARE the sport.

If all well-meaning anti-slaughter groups and anti-suffering groups put as much energy into providing a real alternative solution to the 138,000 horses going to slaughter in Canada and Mexico every year - such as the passage of laws and their enforcement for humane transportation to slaughter in the US, and the funding and passage of laws and their enforcement of slaughter inspectors in the US (to make sure stolen horses are not slaughtered and that the process is indeed conducted humanely) - as they do into being against slaughter but offering no viable alternative - 138,000 horses a year would face a more humane option of death. If the pro-slaughter groups would put their efforts into better US slaughterhouse solutions and the enforcement of the laws involving them (and some of these groups are doing just that), we would all accomplish something.

Will we let this opportunity to lessen the suffering, and sometimes torture of horses go? Do we prefer to continue ignoring the plight of 138,000 horses a year that will be slaughtered no matter where? Is it easier and more satisfying just to be angry and not look for a solution?

Whether we are anti-slaughter, or pro-slaughter, I believe we are ALL united in our desire to alleviate suffering for the horses we love. If horses must be slaughtered - and there will ALWAYS be horse slaughter - it is better that it is controlled and regulated and made more humane in our backyard, which we now once again have the power to implement, instead of in another country, where we have no say, or where we can look away, turn our backs and pretend it does not exist, or affect us.

By conveniently ignoring the hundred thousand horses a year dying in Canadian or Mexican slaughterhouses, by closing our minds to the chance to provide and enforce humane, regulated slaughter here in the US, we are doing the opposite of what we really want: providing a compassionate ending to the lives of our wonderful friends.


*www.gao.gov/assets/320/319935.pdf

Also see my other two posts relating to this:
You Can Lead a Horse To Slaughter

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Out of SIght, Out of Mind

Saturday December 3 2011

Well well.

Cowboy is moving the hungry horses off the property, and Sheriff is in the driveway. (See my previous post, You Can Lead a Horse to Slaughter...)

After weeks with no real food, the horses have stripped even most of the inedible weeds that you see in this picture. (This shows a veritable oasis of weeds a week ago, compared to the ocean of dirt now.) They are gathered in a corral (with no food) and he's filling a big trailer. I'll see tomorrow if he's taken them all. He'll have to make a lot of trips.

I don't know where the herd is going, but now at least I won't have to look at them and wonder when the first one might fall from starvation.

However, that doesn't change the fact that about 50 hungry horses are moving somewhere else and they will still be hungry, and it still makes me think of the slaughter debate.

If they starve to death somewhere else, is it okay, since I won't see it?

If they are sold for slaughter and shipped to Mexico or Canada, is it okay, since I won't see it?

The facts are:

• 2 million households in the US own some of the 9.2 million horses in America.

• Over 100,000 unwanted horses are slaughtered per year in Mexico and Canada, where the US has no jurisdiction in how horses are handled or treated.

• You cannot force horse owners (recreation horse owners, sport horse owners, backyard breeders, million dollar barns, ranchers, etc) to either take care of their horses comfortably till they reach old age and die a natural death, nor to humanely put them down.

• You cannot force more households to adopt unwanted horses, and nurse them back to life, if need be.

•  Over 100,000 horses per year must be disposed of some way.


I appreciate the comments and discussions here and on Facebook from the pro-slaughter advocates (100% of them were pro-slaughter and anti-cruelty and anti-suffering, and yes, you can be both) but I would also like to hear from anti-slaughter folks.

What is your solution?

You Can Lead a Horse to Slaughter...

Thursday December 1 2011

Given the choice, how would you prefer to die? Would you choose to slowly starve to death over a couple of months, your body wasting away in the cold winter as you weaken, ultimately unable to move about, laying in agony till a coyote and Ravens come to help you along by gnawing on your wasting flesh?

Would you rather choose an end in a slaughterhouse?

I have not been to a slaughter plant, nor do I ever want to go. However, I have seen the remains of a mustang who starved to death on the range (above photo). I only saw the end result, not the suffering that got him there. I do not know how long he laid in that spot before the end finally came. It could not have been pretty. And I am currently keeping an eye on a large herd in the area that has nothing - NOTHING - to eat on what was once pasture. All that's left is weeds.

Can you say the horses have food if there are weeds left? Well, it might be like you, a human, eating cottonwood leaves that fall from the trees (which, by the way, the horses have done). Sure, someone will try to convince you that you have a plate of food in front of you, but you can't eat it.

There are tall tales about this local herd swirling around: divorced man with 5 kids finds a rich widow who he loves, and who just happens to have many acres and much money. He also happens to be a horse trainer and he also happens to have a horse - half a dozen horses - almost 50 horses - who move onto the land and have now stripped it bare. He was maybe going to train and sell the horses. Or maybe he was a one-man 'rescue operation' - someone heard 2 cowboys in a feed store, talking about an ad on Craigslist of a ranch in the area asking for money for his 'horse rescue'. (A subsequent search for the ad turned up nothing.)

Maybe there were good intentions and love involved. Maybe not. Whatever the real story, these horses have had nothing substantial to eat for weeks now. You can see in the photo the fence line between the horses' stripped pasture but for inedible weeds, and the untouched grass at the neighbor's (and even that is sparse and not particularly nutritious grazing in a winter desert).


Sadly, there are too many stories like this around the US. Even people with good intentions have had to get rid of their single horse. They have had to disperse entire herds. They can't afford to keep them. Hay runs roughly around $200 a ton, in this area. Horses should eat minimum of 2 percent of their body weight a day, or 20 pounds a day for a 1000-lb horse. I can tell you that when it's cold, our horses eat more than 20 pounds of hay apiece per day to stay warm.

Crude math shows one horse will take 100 days to go through a ton of hay. It will take 50 horses 2 days to go through a ton of hay. The Man should be spending $100 a day on hay to feed this horse herd the minimum amount of hay. He's not.

And that's if you can even get hay. Some areas in the south of the country have been unable to get ANY hay due to the drought. What do you do? Sell your herd? You think they'll all go to happy homes? Who's buying horses nowadays? The market is terrible right now, glutted with horses. People aren't even taking in horses that are free.

So far, the local horse herd in question is not starving, although I have started to see the ribs on some of them. There are mares with unweaned foals at their sides. There is a stallion to make more foals. But if they do reach the starving state, and some PETA or like organization steps in, it is already too late. If it ends for many of them like it did for the mustang, it will not be pretty.

Supposedly, The Man was told to move his horses out, but that hasn't happened. And anyway that doesn't mean they won't suffer the same fate at their new place, which he doesn't have anyway. Hay still costs $200 a ton. Some people are worried he might just turn the horses loose on BLM land to fend for themselves. That will be especially tough for them because it's winter, and grass and water is scarce. Nor is it fair to the ranchers who have the grazing allotment for their cattle.

People yell and weep and gnash their teeth against cruelty to animals. They rail against horse slaughter. I get it. I bleed too, hearing the stories and seeing the pictures. But talk only goes so far. It is a start, when it's done in a constructive way, and when real solutions are presented. But what ARE the solutions to replace the 'Happily Ever After' scenario that just will never happen for tens of thousands of horses every year?

For those who are opposed to horse slaughter, I ask: What do you personally do about it? Do you donate to horse rescue operations? Do you take in horses yourself? How many? Do you work with groups to get laws passed that will protect horses from death by slaughter or other cruelty? Do you help law enforcement spot illegal practices? And if not slaughter, what do you propose as an option?

I have given a former racehorse a home. Just one. I am still wracked with guilt at times when I think of a couple of other special horses I did not track down and try to save. I have been a member of the Exceller Fund for 11 years, giving back something to racehorses who meant so much to me for so many years. It is a pittance, but it is all I can do right now. I would like to take in 100 horses, and I would like to donate millions of dollars to rescue horses from slaughter - but I cannot afford to do so. 

There are 9.2 million horses in the US, according to latest statistics from the American Horse Council. Statistics from the AQHA show over 2 million registered Quarter horses in the US as of 2010, with 83,736 new registrations in 2010. (And these are just REGISTERED Quarter horses.)

Think of that. At the least, an estimated couple hundred thousand horses of all breeds, purebred and mutts, added to the population every year. What happens to them all? They don't all get to live out long and happy lives, cared for by some starry-eyed little girl. There are simply not enough people to go around to take care of all the unwanted horses in the country.

A quick death at slaughter would be merciful for many of these horses... only that is not a reality either. Many are stuffed, overcrowded, into double decker trailers made for cattle, without food, water or stops to rest, on their way to slaughter. They suffer, get terrified, get sick, get beat up, break bones, bleed out, die, on their way to slaughter.

Some states rightly ban the use of double deckers trailers for transporting horses, but it is not federal law, and who enforces it anyway? Understaffed and overworked law enforcement with more pressing problems usually depends on the public to report alledged crimes, so if citizens aren't out monitoring horse transportation, who is?

A new uproar has begun at the news that Congress recently lifted a 5-year-old ban on funding horse meat inspections, which would allow slaughterhouses to reopen in the US again.

Banning slaughterhouses in the US did not stop horse slaughter. It made the journey of the horses headed to slaughter much more difficult, as they are just transported longer distances in sometimes horrid conditions to Canada or Mexico. 138,000 horses were transported to Canada and Mexico for slaughter in 2010, according to a US Government Accountability Office report. That's about the same number of horses that were killed in the US the year before the last slaughter plant was closed in 2007. The slaughter plants in Mexico are not a pretty sight - look them up on the internet - there is not much humaneness or compassion there.

If a ban on horse slaughter in the US was to be continued, what are the options for the tens of thousands of horses that are unwanted every year? Is neglect and starvation a less cruel fate?

Does one try to stop backyard breeding? How? Does one try to stop horse industries from breeding so many horses, in trying to create the perfect performance athlete? How? Does one try to get a law passed and enforced saying everybody must provide humane euthanasia for their horse at home? How? Do you want a government employee coming 'round your barn every week to check on your horses' conditions, and make sure the vet is coming out to administer the Sodium Pentobarbital?

If slaughter should be allowed in the US, how could it be made better? Pass more compassionate laws transporting horses to slaughter? Make slaughter plants less cruel? I have yet to see Temple Grandin's movie, but, didn't she create a more humane plan for slaughter facilities for cattle? Why isn't this mandatory? How can any of this be enforced?

I don't have answers. This is not intended to be an exhaustive look into horse slaughter. I just know I do not want to watch the slow starvation and deaths of 50 helpless horses in my county, and this possible scenario has illuminated the many sticky arguments swirling around the fate of too many unwanted, neglected, and abused horses.

Kudos to those horse owners who can properly give their horses a respectful and comfortable end. Many cannot and many do not. So, currently it seems there are two options for at least a hundred thousand unwanted horses every year: slaughter, or death by intentional neglect. It seems there are currently only two options for horse slaughter: Canada or Mexico. It seems that with Congress recently lifting the ban on funding horse meat inspections and the prospects of opening US slaughter plants in the US in as little as a month, an opportunity has opened up to demand more humane horse transportation and slaughter practices and their enforcement here in this country, since we have no control over Canada and Mexico.

What do you think of horse slaughter? If you are opposed, what are your solutions? What do you do to help horses who need help? Do you donate to rescue organizations? Have you rescued your own horses? How do you you work to promote horse welfare?

*****

Websites/organizations to check out:

Unwanted Horse Coalition, whose mission is to "reduce the number of unwanted horses and to improve their welfare through education and the efforts of organizations committed to the health, safety, and responsible care and disposition of these horses."
http://www.unwantedhorsecoalition.org/

Equine Protection Network has tips on how to help enforce laws of cruel transport.
http://www.equineprotectionnetwork.com/slaughter/transport.htm

Dr Temple Grandin's webpage:
http://www.grandin.com/