As is often the case, perception and reality are two entirely different animals. Let’s take horse slaughter, for example. Follow along as I relate a story of two horses, both bound for slaughter.
Thunder is old, lame, injured, unrideable and unwanted. Unsuccessful in their attempts to find him a home, his owners, who can no longer afford to feed him, take him to the local auction. Some “killer buyers” pay the owner $400, and load the horse onto a truck. Thunder takes a ride down the road to the slaughterhouse, where he is humanely euthanized under the watchful eye of the USDA and other agencies who ensure he does not suffer.
Then, some animal rights activist gets a photo of a horse hanging up-side-down from a hook at a slaughterhouse (most likely in Mexico or Japan), and publishes the photo on the internet. The cry goes out: Save the Poor Abused Horses! End The Suffering of Our Equine Friends!!! As might be predicted, the photo and rally cries spread across the internet like wildfire. Next thing you know there is a bill to ban horse slaughter in congress. More publicity, more rally cries, and poof! Just like that, horse slaughter in the US is banned. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief and goes home.
But hold on. There’s a final chapter in this story that has not been publicized. While everyone is patting each other on the back and congralutating themselves on saving the Noble Horse, nobody is paying attention to what is happening now.
Horse slaughter has been banned in the US. It has not, however, been banned in other countries. Horse meat is still popular for consumption in many countries, and where there is demand, there is supply. Now, take Zippy, Thunder’s cousin, who is taking an entirely different trip to the slaughterhouse than old Thunder. He is still purchased by the killer buyers at the auction. Then he is loaded onto a cattle truck or train car (no need to regulate this anymore… it’s no longer our problem!) where he cannot stand up. He rides for many days and nights with no food or water. (No need to feed or water him, right? The USDA’s not looking!) Some of his travelmates will die on the way. He has to lie among the dead ones. Finally he gets to a dirty slaughterhouse in Mexico, where a chain is wrapped around his hind leg and he is dragged from the truck. Too weak to stand, his head is bashed against the floor as they hang him up, still alive. He will be lucky if someone comes along to slit his throat before he is dropped, head first, into a vat of boiling acid to de-hair him.
Congratulations, America! Another job well done. But don’t take my word for it… here is some info from the American Quarter Horse Association, the largest horse organization in America:
HORSE SLAUGHTER MYTHS AND FACTS — Reprinted from the Virginia Quarter Horse Assoc. website
MYTH: Horse slaughter must be stopped because it is inhumane.
FACT: The euthanasia method used at the plants occurs before processing, and this method is humane, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and the USDA, which regulates the practice. The method meets specific humane requirements set forth by AVMA’s Panel on Euthanasia, the U.S. Congress,1 the American Association of Equine Practitioners, and the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) Statement on Euthanasia because it results in instantaneous brain death. The plants are required to have USDA veterinarians on site supervising the euthanasia of each horse during the entire time the plant is in operation. The veterinarian is bound by law to stop the process and close the plant immediately if any evidence of inhumane treatment is witnessed. Retired USDA veterinarians who fulfilled this role are available for interviews.
MYTH: Banning U.S. horse slaughter will not affect our economy since the plants are foreign-owned.
FACT: Hundreds of employees in the United States who work for horse owners, trucking companies, auction houses, shipping companies and other suppliers will lose their jobs. The plant communities of DeKalb, Illinois, and Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, will be especially hard-hit, with each of the local economies taking a predicted hit of $41 million. The value of each horse will decrease by approximately $300, according to an independent report on the unintended consequences of a horse slaughter ban — the ripple effect of which is predicted to cripple the $40 billion U.S. horse industry.2 The negative impact will be significant, just as it is when a Toyota plant or other foreign-owned business is closed in any other community.
MYTH: If horse slaughter for human consumption is banned, the processing plants will still accept horses and process them for other important purposes.
FACT: H.R. 503’s ban on processing horses for human consumption will close down the three processing plants, according to plant owners, and result in:
- Elimination of the only option that provides salvage value to the horse owner for an animal that is no longer serviceable, useful or desired.
- Elimination of the only USDA-inspected source of equine protein, an essential element in the diet of U.S. zoo animals.
- Elimination of the only large-scale equine research venue for leading schools of veterinary medicine.
- Elimination of the only U.S. source of equine pericardium sacs used in human heart surgeries.
- Elimination of the service plants provide to horse owners by preparing the horse carcasses for acceptance by rendering plants – a time consuming procedure that the slaughter plants now provide at no cost to the owner.
MYTH: The only way to prevent the inhumane treatment of horses is to BAN the private property right to choose horse processing.
FACT: Congress has already performed its duty by passing laws that govern the humane treatment of horses during transportation to the plants and onsite. Enforcement of these laws is the role of the USDA and local and state officials, so if there is ever a compliance problem, these officials will report it. However, if the right to send a horse to slaughter is taken away from horse owners, the Unintended Consequences paper predicts serious problems. Nearly half of all horse owners earn between $25,000 and $75,000 per year.3 If these owners are forced to pay $300-$2,000 to dispose of a horse, instead of being able to receive value for their property ($300-400 for processing), the report says that some owners will have no other option but to abandon the animal, slaughter it themselves and prepare the carcass for rendering, or simply neglect it by not adequately feeding the horse. Concerns regarding the effects of BSE and other diseases on rendered products have resulted in a decreasing number of rendering facilities in the U.S., so horse owners are finding it increasingly difficult to find a renderer. Horse burial is illegal in many areas.
MYTH: The horse industry supports HR 503.
FACT: The American Quarter Horse Association (largest U.S. horse organization), the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture (which has jurisdiction over the legislation), and 190 other horse, veterinary, cattle, and agriculture organizations OPPOSE this horse slaughter ban based on fundamental economic, humane and public health issues. Many horse owners support keeping the
horse processing option, even if some choose not to use it.
MYTH: If U.S. horse slaughter is banned, Kentucky Derby champions like Ferdinand will be saved from slaughter in the future.
FACT: Ferdinand was slaughtered in Japan, and this ban will not prevent the foreign slaughter of any future unwanted horses. After horses leave this country – whether they go to Mexico, Latin America, or Japan – passage of HR 503 would not prevent them from being slaughtered in one of many foreign slaughterhouses, where seven million horses are slaughtered each year for human consumption. The legislation would simply eliminate the U.S. plants: the most stringently regulated and humane animal processing plants in the world.
MYTH: “Some horses…are improperly stunned and are conscious when they are hoisted by a rear leg to have their throats cut,” states the HSUS horse slaughter fact sheet posted at www.hsus.org.
FACT: Each and every horse is humanely euthanized before any processing activities occur and the three plants have a documented track record of humane treatment. In fact, USDA veterinarian inspectors are present for the humane euthanasia of every horse, and are mandated by law to stop the process if the horses aren’t rendered brain dead before they are moved and processed. Not only is humane treatment the law, it is good business practice. Treating the horses well and minimizing their pain and stress keeps the plants operating smoothly and efficiently.
MYTH: Horse neglect did not increase in the past when the number slaughtered horses declined, so if HR 503 passes and the number of horses slaughtered drops from 90,000 to zero, there will be no increase in neglect, according to bill sponsor Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky). 4
FACT: An increase in neglect is likely, according to university experts, because the ban will take away the only option that provides salvage value for disposing of the nation’s unwanted horses. According to the Unintended Consequences report, “Tens of thousands of horses could be neglected or abandoned if a processing ban were imposed…Local and state governments will be adversely impacted by increased costs of regulation and care of unwanted or neglected horses.”5 Market forces, not slaughter plants, determine how many horses go to slaughter. Since there is no national system for recording and tracking horse neglect, there is no way to identify trends or compare trends to slaughter numbers. Each year, a variety of factors dictate the number of unwanted horses: the number of horses with insurmountable behavior problems, the disposable income of horse owners, and the market value of horses. The plants are the repository for the unwanted horses that no one else will take.
MYTH: If horse slaughter is banned, people will adopt or buy the unwanted horses.
FACT: The horses that go to slaughter are the unwanted of the unwanted — often because they can’t be ridden, or are dangerous. Their market value is so low, no one else bought them. A few of the influx of 60,000 to 90,000 unwanted horses may be adopted. However, if there were such a demand to adopt and care for this type of horse, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management would
have been able to find homes for the thousands of unwanted wild horses that taxpayers paid nearly $40 million to feed and shelter in 2005. The average yearly cost of caring for a horse is $2,300 and many horses live to be 30 years old. According to a memo from the Congressional Research Service, “A key concern expressed by a number of equine groups is whether the existing U.S. horse sanctuaries have adequate resources to absorb the large number of animals that could be confiscated or otherwise diverted from slaughter if this law were to pass…AHPA agrees that no nationwide standard-setting or oversight system is in place and also that no rescue organizations may have the resources or business capabilities to take in large numbers of horses.”6
MYTH: Slaughter plants should be closed because that’s where stolen horses end up.
FACT: There is no evidence of a stolen horse problem at the plants, so banning horse slaughter can’t be a solution. The three horse slaughter plants document every horse that arrives, and very few, if any, stolen horses have been found. In Texas, as of 1997, a law enforcement official onsite inspects each horse and checks it against reports of stolen horses. In Illinois, horses arriving are also checked against records of stolen horses. Why would someone steal a horse worth $3,000 or $800 to sell it for $300 to a processing plant?
MYTH: Horses are treated poorly during transport to slaughter.
FACT: The treatment of horses to slaughter is stringently regulated. No other animal has humane treatment laws governing its transportation to slaughter, so horses are already protected more than any other livestock animal. USDA reports that the regulations are being enforced. In fact, an analysis published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association in 1999, conducted by renowned animal welfare expert Temple Grandin, PhD, stated “…owner abuse or neglect (before transportation) is the primary cause of severe welfare problems in horses arriving at slaughter plants.” Although USDA has increased the number of inspections of horse transportation to slaughter, inspectors have found no evidence of a systemic problem, according to a recent USDA letter to the House Committee on Agriculture.7
MYTH: Video on anti-slaughter Web sites proves that horse slaughter is not humane.
FACT: The footage of horses being mistreated may have been shot in Mexico or Latin America, but it was NOT filmed in any of the three U.S. plants operating today, nor does it reflect the humane euthanasia process mandated by current federal laws and regulations. To the plants’ and their regulators’ knowledge, there is no evidence that demonstrates a systemic problem of horses being mistreated in the three U.S. processing plants. Therefore, there is no defendable reason to ban horse processing for human consumption.
MYTH: Americans should support HR 503 because animal rights groups say it will improve horse welfare.
FACT: The Humane Society of the United States also said it would improve the welfare of animals saved after Hurricane Katrina, but HSUS is currently under investigation by the Louisiana Attorney General, who is questioning exactly how they improved animal welfare, especially since they raised $30 million to pursue this end.8 The Animal Liberation Front supports a ban on horse slaughter so strongly that one of their members burned down a horse slaughter plant in 1997, putting animals at risk. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) employees were also charged with animal cruelty last year for killing cats and dogs and throwing them into dumpsters after stating they were going to take them to shelters and put them up for adoption.9
# # #
1 – The Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1904, The Humane Methods of Slaughter Act of 1977, and USDA Food Safety Inspection Service
Regulations on Humane Handling and Slaughter of Livestock (1978 – 2003) and 1996 Commercial Transportation of Horses to Slaughter
(updated 2002)
2 – Ahearn J, Anderson D, Bailey D, et al. “The Unintended Consequences of a Ban on the Humane Slaughter (Processing) of Horses in the
United States,” available at www.animalwelfarecouncil.org. Accessed July 29, 2006.
3 – American Horse Council, 2005
4 – U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee Hearing on H.R. 503, 25 July 2006
5 – Ahearn J, Anderson D, Bailey D, et al. “The Unintended Consequences of a Ban on the Humane Slaughter (Processing) of Horses in the
United States,” available at www.animalwelfarecouncil.org. Accessed July 29, 2006.
6 – Memo from Congressional Research Service to House Agriculture Committee, “Equine Rescue Organizations,” May 7, 2004
7 – Letter from USDA to Bob Goodlatte, Chairman, U.S. House Committee on Agriculture.
8 – Salmon, Jacqueline, “Red Cross, Humane Society Under Investigation” Sunday, March 26, 2006, p. A10, available at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/25/AR2006032501002_2.html. Retrieved August 14, 2006.
9 – “PETA Employees Face Felony Cruelty Animal Charges,” available at www.petakillsanimals.com/petaTrial.cfm. Retrieved August 21,2006.
Another important article is at:
http://sev.prnewswire.com/agriculture/20060830/DCW04130082006-1.html
AMEN AMEN AMEN, I agree on every point. The value of the horses I have bred from great bloodlines is practically nothing. The market is ruined. I am so tired of the minority running the country.
Can we REALLY trust the USDA to properly do their job of regulating slaughter? It appears to me we cannot…
You bring up a very good point… and it’s true, the USDA is not ‘all that it could be’ on many levels… but I think in this case it would have been the lesser of the evils… of course, sadly, it’s a moot point now.
I think it would make sence to open up a couple of processing plants in every state so we can choose and take our own horses to be destroyed if necessary. That way they wouldn’t always have to be auctioned to someone who has access to slaughter plants. When I lived in CA we had a rendering plant and when it was time to end a horses life to stop the suffering they would take the horse in and put it down for $5. They kept the body and processed it.
If we had a place to take the horses and maybe get paid that little bit of blood money in the end then maybe fewer horses would suffer neglect because they always pay more when the horse is in better condition. Just another take on the matter.
I agree that we should have highly regulated slaughter houses here. As someone said it is the lesser of the evils. However, I think that the mentallity of sending a horse to auction and slaughter as the norm for ending it’s life is something that we need to change. Every horse owner should figure the expense of humanely having their horse euthanized by a vet and hauled away when the time comes as part of the cost of horse ownership. Stop trying to squeeze a few more bucks out your horse by sending it off to auction and step up to the responsibilty of ownership from start to end.
In a perfect world, that would be fine. In actuality, a lot of horse owners find themselves not in a financial position to have their horse euthanized. In the situation now (after the plants have been closed), many horses are starving in their pastures because the owner cannot afford to feed them, and now has no other options but to let them starve. At least the auction/killer buyers provided an incentive for owners to bring them to the sale, where the horse had a small chance of being bought by someone other than a killer buyer…. either way, at least they would not be just starving like they are now. It is worse, I think.
Sad as it is, it is not as sad as those poor horses being shipped to Mexico. That is a nightmare. And just to put some fears to rest, I am a natural horsemanship trainer, a third year student in vet school, and I have worked for the USDA. And the only way to make sure slaughter is done humanely is to get the USDA actively involved! They aren’t perfect, but they are the best we have, and they do a pretty good job. So put pressure on your neighbors, congressmen, etc, to reverse this law so we can help these horses and the people who can no longer afford to take care of them in a humane way.
How about those who live in areas where illegal to bury bodies of livestock. I would rather have a place to take an elderly horse to be euthanized than to have their body lay by the road (sometimes for days) to get picked up. I have even seen where and injured horse was required to walk to the road to be put down.(talk about the “Walk of Death”) Doesn’t make more sense to have a processing plant that is regulated versus making horses suffer more. Or try explaining to a kid why their horse is laying by the road to get picked up. Has to be a better way.
THANK YOU. Finally something more than a gut reaction to all of the hype. Your facts are correct and you are taking a rational approach to educating an equine public who have so far responded emotionally rather than rationally to our current problem.
You might consider adding an article I recently red in JAVMA that horse abuse cases in the US have increased since the slaughter ban was imposed.
Finally a true horseman!! Like me, you know you can only save so many, and then what about the rest. We are licensed dealers and the horse prices have been pushed so low by the ban that we actually have to turn horse owners away that want to GIVE us horses. I have 6 horses of my own now, having added 2 in the last year, but that is all I can keep. I am also training a few horses to give them a future and feeding a few horses that are nice but were starved. I know that I “the hated horse dealer” am doing more to help than most of the activist that campaigned to shut the plants here are. I am investing my personal time and money into trying to save a few, not just signing a petition and then going on my happy way. I see the results of what they accomplished everyday, and it almost brings me to tears at times, at least I use to know the fate of the unwanted horses was humane slaughter, now you can only imagine the what the end holds for so many.
You stated that horses go to the slaughter house because they are dangerous. Well actually, a true “natural horseman” knows that there is no such thing as a dangerous horse. Horses only act dangerous when THEY feel they are in danger of YOU.
Keepin it Natural
-AS
Hi Amanda,
Thanks for your input. Let me correct you on a couple points. I said ONE of the reasons a horse might be sent to slaughter was because it was dangerous. And there is indeed such a thing as a dangerous horse. I’ll give you one example: One horse I rescued in California was a chronic kicker. He had been traumatized as a youngster when something wrapped around his back legs and trapped him. After he recovered from his injuries, he spent the rest of his life kicking at ANYTHING that came near his hind end, whether it be a dog (he’d killed one and injured another), a person, a child, whatever. I worked with him for 6 months and was not able to get him to the point where I deemed him safe to be around. I then sent him to a 5-star Parelli instructor who specialized in problem horses. She did everything she could think of and could not get him to the point where he was safe. We ended up donating him to one of her students to be a pasture ornament, which was lucky for him. Most horses do not have that option, and most people cannot afford to have a useless horse hanging around sucking up $$ in feed and vet bills. While I agree there are not many horses that I would say are beyond help, there are some. Personally, I don’t like to see any horse suffer for any reason, but if that horse was starving out in some field, I think humane euthanasia/slaughter would have been preferable.
YOUR article was wonderful. I agreed with everything YOU wrote. Then you quoted the AQHA. I don’t feel it is fair to your readers to quote the opinion of one organization, especially the largest supporter of horse slaughter. Why do you think they are the largest supporter of slaughter? I will not take the time to agree or agrue each of the myths or facts. What I will say are some of my feelings regarding slaughter. Like dogs and cats, there are too many horses and not enough homes. We need to educate people to stop randomly breeding horses. Yes, there are too many worthless horses on the market because of careless breeding, and not enough training. Everyone is responsible for this, including the QH, TB, Arab, ect., and backyard breeders. They breed all their mares, then when they don’t get a saleable foal its off to the auction for a quick buck. Something is better than nothing. Remember, slaughter age is 6 months and older.
I think it was wrong to have closed the slaughter plants in the US. What should have been done was to enforce the laws already on the books. Cruelty was occuring. Horses were suffering. This was because, for whatever reason, the laws already on the books were not being followed. As we know this is true with all animals, not just horses. Lets not make more laws, lets enforce the ones we already have.
Thank you,
Its really nice to have some one put some light on what is going on know that slaughter plants are shut down in the u.s.
I know that none of us like the idea of horse slaughter and we see all the sad pics of hanging horses …….now that we have shut down slaughter plants that had boundries and laws to obey,the real night mare starts FOR THE HORSE. The people didn’t stop anything(horse slaughter) they just made it harder on the horse. If in fact the horse isn’t sold to a kill buyer it is probably dropped of in the mountains to fend for itself (we have it all the time where we live)We found horses starved to death or still alive but hamstrung by preditors on deaths door. The abuse these poor animals go through from abuse to neglect in any and every fashion.
I don’t know what the solution is but the horse is worse off in my opinion and the “people” should have looked at the big picture.
Hi Aeron,
would you allow me to copy the whole article and translate it to german and to publish it in some forums and other platforms in english and german? Of course I will always name the author and give a link to your page.
Thanks! S.
Yes, Samuel, you may copy and translate the article….. Thanks for asking! ~Aeron
Sorry…but going to have to disagree with you on the slaughter issue. To extend your example of “Thunder,” I can’t think of anything sadder than some family’s poor old horse being taking away from everything and everyone he’s ever known, run though an auction, crammed onto a trailer with several other terrified horses and shipped off to slaughter.
And don’t even try to use that pathetic excuse of, “They can’t afford the humane euthanasia.” For Shame! If you can “afford” a horse, you darn well better have a few hundred bucks set aside to humanely give that horse a dignified and painless end when his time comes! THAT is what’s known as responsible ownership – taking care of your animal from start to finish!
As for slaughter in general, the question responsible horse people should be asking is not, “Why are so many horses going to slaughter,” but instead, “Why do we have so many unwanted horses?” The issue of slaughter will never go away until people stop over-breeding horses. You’d think it would be common sense – simple supply and demand economics. The market for horses is poor. Therefore, stop over-supplying. And yet, breeding goes unchecked.
The slaughter industry is driven by greed, and supplied by ignorance.
Yes, ideally, a horse owner paying for the humane euthanasia of their older/unwanted/unusable horses is the best solution. Unfortunately, this is not what’s happening. I attend local horse auctions every month to monitor the situation, and I can tell you that the majority of the people who bring horses to these sales are not the types to spend a couple hundred dollars PER HORSE to put the poor critters down. And yes, I think we have already agreed that we need to stop over-breeding… but it will take YEARS before we see any kind of sizable reduction in numbers…. the question is, what do we do with the horses that are starving NOW? It’s easy to say “spend the money to put them down humanely,” so if it’s so easy, why don’t you come, as my guest, to the next horse auction, and buy up some of these crippled or dangerous horses, and you can put your money where your mouth is.
When was horse slaughter banned in the US? That bill was just once again introduced January 14th, 2009. I know the last plants closed but I don’t believe it was because horse slaughter was banned, can someone clarify for me?
As far as I know, the last US slaughterhouse closed in Sept of 2007 (see article here: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/23/bloomberg/bxhorse.php). The bill that is up now is attempting to control the shipment of horses to Mexico and Canado for slaughter… (article here: http://www.winonadailynews.com/articles/2008/03/23/news/07horses.txt).
Unfortunately, horses are still shipped out of the country for slaughter to places where there are fewer laws to protect them… if we had slaughterhouses here in the US, at least we could control them and ensure the horses were destroyed humanely. It’s not a pretty picture, but we could be doing more to protect the horses and ensure their last days were not as horrible.