ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading independent newspaper providing original investigative coverage of animal protection worldwide. Founded in 1992, ANIMAL PEOPLE has no alignment or affiliation with any other entity.

 

This site built and maintained by: GREANVILLE ASSOCIATESand CRESCENT COMMUNICATIONS •Rev. 12.1.05 Copyright ANIMAL PEOPLE, INC. 1992--2006

 

 

 

 

 
   

 
powered by FreeFind

ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: October 2007

Horse defenders try to close borders

 

CHICAGO, SAN ANTONIO, WASHINGTON D.C.--A September 21, 2007 ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals appeared to end horse slaughter within the U.S., pending further appeals by plaintiff Cavel International.

Immediate effects of the ruling, upholding a May 2007 Illinois law prohibiting the slaughter of horses for human consumption, were to increase exports of horses to slaughter in Mexico and Canada, and to redouble efforts by the Humane Society of the U.S. to ban the exports.

"States have a legitimate interest in prolonging the lives of animals that their population happens to like," the three-judge panel opined. "They can ban bullfights and cockfights and the abuse and neglect of animals."

HSUS at a Capitol Hill press conference on October 4, 2007 used recent video of horse transportation and slaughter in Mexico to boost the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, introduced by Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana) and Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois).

"If enacted, this law would prohibit the export of American horses for slaughter," explained HSUS vice president of government affairs Nancy Perry. "Additionally, it would impose a federal prohibition against any resumption of domestic horse slaughter."

The film showed horses being stabbed to death by a method resembling the dispatch of a bull by a bullfighter. The method typically requires stabbing the animal multiple times to sever the spinal cord, and the animals tend to die slowly.

The Senate version of the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act had 32 co-sponsors, while the House version had 172. A similar bill cleared the House in 2006, but was not considered by the Senate.

"So far this year," San Antonio Express-News reporter Lisa Sandberg wrote on October 21, 2007, "some 55,000 horses have been shipped to Mexico and Canada and butchered in plants there."

Exports to Mexico were reportedly up 370%, and exports to Canada were up 23%.

"Overall, though," Sandberg said, "15,000 fewer American horses have been killed compared with the same time last year.

"If American horses were protected from slaughter," Sandberg added, "it's hard to say if there would be enough safe havens for unwanted ones. More than 140,000 American horses were turned into horsemeat last year, according to government figures, about 1.5 percent of the 9.2 million horses the American Horse Council estimates are in the U.S."

This appears to be about seven times the total capacity of all of the horse sanctuaries in the U.S., including those operated by the Bureau of Land Management to hold mustangs removed from federally owned grazing land in accordance with the 1971 Wild And Free Ranging Horse and Burro Protection Act.

The American Veterinary Medical Association and American Association of Equine Practitioners "correctly predicted that horses would suffer more if U.S. operations closed and traders simply outsourced the job," Sandberg wrote.

"The AVMA does not support horse slaughter," AVMA governmental relations division director Mark Lutschaunig said in a prepared statement. "Ideally, we would have the infrastructure in this country to adequately feed and care for all horses. But the sad reality is that we have a number of horses that, for whatever reason, are unwanted. Transporting them under USDA supervision to USDA-regulated facilities where they are humanely euthanized is a much better option than neglect, starvation, or an inhumane death in Mexico."

"Factors including a drought that brought hay shortages, the closing of horse slaughterhouses, a downturn in the economy, and equine inspectors spread too thin has resulted in a rise in incidences of horse abuse and neglect across the state of Geor-gia," wrote Jane Cone of the Tifton Gazette on September 22--but hers was the only report ANIMAL PEOPLE has seen since the last U.S. horse slaughterhouses were closed to assert that horse neglect is up. Otherwise, the number of horses involved in neglect cases appears to be consistent with most recent years.

"I would say we have a slight increase in cases where people are not properly taking care of their horses," Georgia Department of Agriculture commissioner Tommy Irvin told Cone.

Tufts University animal behavior clinic director Nicholas Dodman "hopes to convince veterinarians to provide free or low-cost euthanasia at designated sites around the country," Sandberg reported, "to ease the financial burden on owners who otherwise would sell old or unwanted horses to a 'killer buyer.' Last year, Dodman helped found Veterinarians for Equine Welfare, but the group has accomplished little more than set up a web site. He said it is stymied by lack of funding."

"We want to do mass e-mails and a mass letter writing campaign," Dodson said, "but we don't have addresses or e-mails."