Unwanted Horse Coalition

Own Responsibility.  It’s the title of a booklet published by the Unwanted Horse Coalition (www.unwantedhorsecoalition.com) in Washington, D.C.

It’s a must read for anyone who has a horse, is looking to buy a horse or sell/give away a horse.  If you care about horses, it’s simply a “must read.”  You can download it for free at their website.

The website states, “The Unwanted Horse Coalition was organized to promote awareness and education about the issues involved in owning a horse and the long-term responsibilities of owners to their horses.”  They deliver.

While much of the horse world is at odds over horse slaughter and NAIS requirements, this website is filled with real, rational, unbiased information that every horse owner should have.  I’ve included a link to their site on my “Blogroll.”  Please, take a few moments to download and read the booklet.

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The Pro-Slaughter Push Back

As the anti-horse slaughter forces push their agenda to outlaw horse processing nationwide, the pro-slaughter forces are pushing back.

Montana just instituted a horse slaughter law that gives unprecedented protection to prospective developers of horse processing facilities in the Big Sky state.

Horse slaughter has always been legal in Montana, but state representative Ed Butcher (“Mr. Ed Butcher” is, I swear, his real name) introduced House Bill 418 to give special protection to any privately owned horse processing facility.  The bill became law on May 1, 2009, and insulates processing plant developers from licensing and permit challenges based on environmental and other grounds.  It also awards attorney and court fees to the developer in cases brought against them where the district courts deem the case harassing or without merit.

The bill is obviously intended to thwart attempts by anti-slaughter forces to tie-up processing plant applications and keep the developers in court.  And it may work.

This may be just the tip of a backlash iceberg created as a result of rural communities responding to the anti-slaughter efforts to make horse slaughter illegal nationally.

“People in rural areas really got behind this legislation,” Butcher said.

Other states, including Missouri, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming have all taken some action to resist a broad, national ban on horse slaughter.  The Missouri Equine Council (www.mo-equine.org) publicly supports Montana’s HB 418 and most of the other state’s efforts to keep horse slaughter legal.

As with many battles that pit emotion against perceived rights, this fight becomes less and less about horses, and more about cultural values.

Only when the pro- and anti-slaughter forces put aside emotional rhetoric and intransigent arguments and work toward rational compromise, will the horses actually win.

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Good Intentions; Static Arguments

Rhetoric over reason seems to be guiding the horse slaughter debate.  While both sides ramp-up their efforts to influence the future of horse slaughter, neither is addressing the primary concerns of the other.

North Dakota’s state legislature passed H.B. 1496 last month authorizing $50,000 to the state department of commerce to conduct an equine processing facility feasibility study.

Last month, leaders from five Native American tribes sent a letter to the Bureau of Indian Affairs expressing concern for the growing population of wild horses in their territories.  According to the letter, horse herds have a significant, negative impact on crops, medicinal plants, forage plants and other natural resources.  As a result, tribal leaders are discussing the possibility of opening processing facilities for horses and other livestock.

Yet, despite all the pro-slaughter arguments, no one seems willing to address the anti-slaughter forces’ primary concern: the inhumane treatment of horses sent to slaughter.

Horses, whether wild or captive bred, lead a lifestyle completely different from cattle, sheep and goats.  As long as pro-slaughter forces ignore the way horses are rounded up, transported and slaughtered, anti-slaughter forces will fight them relentlessly.

And there ARE alternatives to current slaughtering methods.  One woman, Temple Grandin, has a successful business advising processing facilities how to be humane in their methods.  Grandin is, by many standards, a fringe character to be sure, but if you listen to her interview on National Public Radio, you will find that she makes a lot of good points about humane slaughter.

Like the pro-slaughter activists, anti-slaughter forces are no more willing to take a step back from some of their entrenched positions.  No matter how many times they say there are no unwanted horses, there really are.  Sticking your head in the sand isn’t an argument.

Anti-slaughter forces also refuse to accept the economics of horse ownership for many in rural areas of the country.  In rural Virginia, one vet charges $310 to euthanize and dispose of a horse.  If the vet comes to you, it’s $230 for a farm call and euthanasia, provided you have the heavy equipment and land to bury the horse yourself.

Either option is a lot of money for someone having trouble making their mortgage payments.  Anti-slaughter forces aren’t addressing this issue; they just say it’s not a problem.  But it is.

Watching horses being slaughtered is very hard, and virtually intolerable if they’re being killed in Mexico.  It’s worth wondering if the 98,363 horses hauled out of this country for slaughter last year would actually face less trauma and torture if they were slaughtered in the U.S. under strict humane standards.

Eventually, one side in the horse slaughter battle will win.  Let’s hope the two sides will work for a compromise so the winner will actually be the horses.

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Vegans Driving Horse Slaughter Ban?

Are radical vegans behind proposed federal legislation to outlaw horse slaughter, as part of a conspiracy to eventually outlaw all meat?

To read one journalist’s story, you might think so.

Sarah Murihead, reporting for Stock & Land on 4-15-09, writes: “At the core of the current horse harvesting debate in the United States is animal agriculture’s concern that the criminalisation of one animal-based protein source – horse meat – could be a stepping stone toward making all meat consumption illegal.”

But, she offers no proof that any official agricultural organizations are actually concerned about this as a “core” of the anti-slaughter forces, nor does she offer any evidence of vegans being the driving force behind proposed anti-slaughter legislation.

In fact, the headline of the story borders on sheer fantasy: “US fears horse harvest ban a step to veganism.”  Wow.  No evidence, just scare tactics.

Murihead refers to a recent meeting of the National Institute for Animal Agriculture and quotes Essie Rogers, director of education for the Kentucky Horse Council on the issue of horse slaughter.  She then lists three bullet points, unattributed and without context, one of which says, “precedent being set for all meat.”

She then quotes, at length, Sue Wallis from the Wyoming state legislature.  Wallis’s points are broad, varied and fundamentally valid.  Wallis makes a good case against outlawing horse slaughter.  But, among her many points countering the anti-slaughter arguments is the implication that any federal anti-horse-slaughter legislation might put us on a slippery slope to eventually outlawing all meat.

The quotes indicate that these are Wallis’s opinions; what she thinks might happen, not an observation about anything that actually is happening.  For Murihead to suggest otherwise, is specious journalism. There is no evidence to support the article’s headline or its opening paragraph.

Sure, there are plenty of PETA supporters and vegans who oppose slaughtering horses just like they oppose slaughtering any animal for food.  But, there is no evidence they are the subversive power manipulating Congress to outlaw horse slaughter.

In the U.S. House of Representatives, H.R. 503 proposes to effectively outlaw horse slaughter.  The bill’s sponsor is John Conyers (D-MI), a 21-term Congressman.  I doubt Michigan would elect, 21 times, a tree-hugging, radical vegan Hell-bent on outlawing hamburgers and steaks.

In the U.S. Senate, S. 727, which also proposes to outlaw horse slaughter, is sponsored by Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Louisiana’s senior senator and among the most moderate in the Senate.  In Louisiana, if it walks, crawls, slithers, swims or flies, it’s dinner, so I doubt Senator Landrieu is a clandestine, radical vegan operative.

Anti-horse-slaughter forces are guided largely by emotion, not dietary philosophy.  I’m sure most are meat eaters.  The ones I know are.  They simply oppose the cruel methods used to capture, transport and slaughter what they consider to be companion animals.

It’s my opinion that Congress has as much chance of outlawing all meat as it does outlawing the Bible.  Ain’t gonna happen.  Setting up vegans as a strawman in the argument against horse slaughter would be political demagoguery.  Let’s stick to the facts and leave fantasy to the fiction writers.

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The Reality of Unwanted Horses

“No unwanted horses.”  It’s the mantra of the anti-horse-slaughter forces.  They’re good people who care about great animals, but they’re wrong.

Last week, the New York Times reported that law enforcement officers throughout the country, and especially in Kentucky, were reporting significant increases in the number of neglected and abandoned horses.

While 98,363 horses were sent to Canada and Mexico for slaughter last year according to the U.S. Humane Society, prices for these unwanted equines have dropped dramatically.  With some auctions paying as little as $50 per animal, it isn’t practical for some owners to even haul the horses to the auction.

Nevada reports an almost six-fold increase in horses abandoned on state land last year.  Abandoned horses were virtually unheard of in Wyoming before 2008, but officials recovered 20 last year.  Texas rescued 170 neglected horses in the largest seizure of its kind in state history.

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has been “overwhelmed” with reports of neglected horses, and by giving their emergency hay to rescue facilities, exhausted an entire year’s supply in two months.

With the closing of U.S. horse slaughter facilities and the declining economy, horse abandonment is often the only economically feasible alternative for many horse owners.  In response, several states, including Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Illinois and Montana are looking at ways to bring back horse slaughter.

Montana, where horse slaughter is currently legal, tried to pass a bill that would shield horse slaughter plant investors from many types of lawsuits.  In Illinois, where horse slaughter was made illegal in 2007, the state legislature is trying to pass HB 0583, a bill to repeal the prohibition of horse slaughter (the bill has been stopped for now, but may face a vote in the future).

In February, Nick Rahall (D-WV) introduced HR 1018 to Congress which would, among other things, prohibit the killing of wild horses and burros unless terminally ill.  Yet, the Bureau of Land Management has roughly 30,000 wild horses in holding facilities and another 33,000 on ranges that can only effectively hold 27,000.  Costs are skyrocketing and adoption isn’t working.

In the United States there have always been unwanted horses.   When slaughter was legal in Illinois and Texas, the overseas market for horse meat provided a profitable alternative for horse owners unable or unwilling to care for their horse.  Now, with the economy faltering and the cost and hassle of shipping unwanted horses to Mexico and Canada going up, abandonment is becoming the only cost-free alternative for many owners.

I would cut off an arm before I’d send one of my horses to slaughter.  If I couldn’t sell them to a good home, couldn’t give them to a good home and couldn’t afford to have them humanely destroyed, I’d shoot them myself before allowing them to wind up on some European’s dinner plate.

But, until the anti-slaughter forces come up with viable, no-cost options for the thousands and thousands of unwanted horses in this country, their efforts will have the unintended consequence of putting countless horses out into the wild to starve, wander in pain and ultimately die a more horrific death than at any slaughtering facility.

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Horse Slaughter Meets States Rights

Forgive the pun, but federal legislation prohibiting horse slaughter may forever be dead on arrival in Congress.

The House and Senate each have bills in committee that would effectively outlaw horse slaughter in the United States. Similar bills in the 110th Congress, which adjourned January ’09, never passed and died with that session of congress. The bills in the 111th Congress might also die a natural death, but they’re getting an extra push toward the grave by a new development being injected into the horse slaughter debate: State’s Rights.

Four states are currently pushing back against the anti-slaughter movement. Wyoming, Utah, North Dakota and Montana are all considering legislation to promote horse processing plant development (theHorse.com).

Wyoming and Utah also sponsored resolutions urging Congress to let the states make their own decisions about horse slaughter.

“We can handle (these issues) as a state better than the feds can,” said Utah State Rep. Bradley Winn.

“It’s like musical chairs, the last one with the horse is stuck with it,” said Utah State Senator Allen Christensen.

North Dakota is seeking funding for a feasibility study on plant development. Supporters of horse slaughter in the state say such plants could benefit equine management and studies at the state’s universities.

Montana tried to pass a law protecting investors in horse slaughter plants, saying such plants would create jobs and help alleviate the problem of economy-driven unwanted horses. Montana governor Brian Schweitzer vetoed the bill, but not because he doesn’t support horse slaughter plants. Governor Schweitzer said the bill was a “Trojan Horse,” offering special protection to plant investors while not addressing the real problems facing such plants: the fact that the U.S. Congress has barred the USDA from inspecting horse meat.

States Rights are big deal. Remember the Civil War? Texas and Illinois have both outlawed horse slaughter, so why should the federal government get involved?

Regardless of how you feel about horse slaughter, if you don’t get involved by contacting your elected representatives, someone else is going to make the rules for you.

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