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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS
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MONTH: November/December 2007
Dealing with fallout from horse slaughter ban
SPRINGFIELD, Illinois -- The deaths of 18 Belgian draft horses in an October 27, 2007 traffic accident in Wadsworth, Illinois, the alleged starvation deaths of four horses at the Coeur d’Alene Auction Yards in Idaho, discovered on October 24, recent horse abandonments in the Treasure Valley region of Idaho, and the Halloween shootings of two ponies beside a riding trail in Snoqualmie, Washington are cited by defenders of horse slaughter as purported reasons why the last horse slaughterhouses in the U.S. should not have been closed.
The slaughterhouses were closed earlier in 2007 by a combination of enforcement of 1949 Texas legislation, a new Illinois state law, and a Washington D.C. federal district court ruling that the inspection arrangements that had kept the slaughterhouses open violated the National Environmental Policy Act.
Animal advocates say the Illinois, Idaho, and Washington incidents point toward other abuses that they have long sought to stop: hauling horses in double-decked trailers meant for cattle and pigs, not feeding animals when feed prices exceed anticipated profits from sale, and dumping or killing animals rather than retire or rest them and pay for vet care.
Horses are still being trucked to slaughter, but now at slaughterhouses in Mexico and Canada. A bill now before Congress called American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act would cut off that traffic.
Illinois state representatives Bob Molaro and JoAnn Osmond responded to the Wadsworth truck crash by introducing a bill to ban the use of double-decker trucks to transport horses within the state. The offense would be a misdemeanor, carrying a fine of $500 per animal for the first offense and $1,000 per animal for repetition.
Associated Press reported that the Molaro/Osmond bill was likely to be endorsed by the Lake County Farm Bureau,in contrast with the usual tendency of Farm Bureau chapters to oppose humane legislation. “I would be very surprised if we did not take some action to help move the legislation forward,” said Lake County Farm Bureau manager Gregory G. Koeppen.
But stable owner Scott Golladay of Antioch, Illinois,told Associated Press that he is skeptical of the proposed ban. “I’m not in favor of double-deckers, but it becomes an economic decision,” Golladay said. “Some of these horsemen try to cram as many into a truck as they can because they have to travel so far.”
Illinois state representative Ed Sullivan replied that piling nearly 60 horses into a single double-decked trailer jeopardized everyone else on the road as well as the horses.
The Wadsworth crash occurred, said Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran, after truck driver James E. Anderson, 34,of McLeod, North Dakota, ran a red light. Anderson was cited for disregarding the light, failing to reduce speed to avoid an accident, and not having a bill of lading, Curran told media.
An oncoming pickup truck hit Anderson’s truck and trailer. The vehicle crossed the median and the trailer overturned, blocking traffic in both directions. Of the 59 Belgian horses aboard, eight died from injuries. Ten more were euthanized. Five veterinarians and numerous local equine rescuers worked all night to save the rest.
“Picture a a dangerous cavern filled with horses piled on top of each other, some of them kicking dangerously,” Wisconsin horse rescuer Colleen Fisch told Chicago Tribune staff reporter Jeff Long. “They were all in sections too small for horses. For the rescuers, it was extremely dangerous.”
Sixteen horses were killed in a similar accident in 2006, after a double-decked trailer hauling 41 horses and a mule overturned en route to the now closed Cavel International slaughterhouse in DeKalb, Illinois.
This accident was completely avoidable and inexcusable,”said Sheriff Curran. “I say this because you had 59 Belgian draft horses, which is an extremely large horse, being transported in one truck with one driver on one of the busiest highways in the nation.”
Federal law prohibits the use of double-decked trailers to haul horses to slaughter, but Curran said the horses involved in the Wadsworth crash were en route from Millersberg, Indiana, and were headed to an auction in Verndale, Minnesota, where their owner hoped to sell them to members of the Amish community.
The surviving horses “could be adopted or go home with many of the dozens of volunteers who rescued them,” Chicago Tribunestaff reporter Tara Malone updated on November 1. “Adoptions will begin as soon as the horses’ owner authorizes the process.”
The adoption arrangements were to be supervised by Donna Ewing of the Hooved Animal Rescue and Protection Society in Barrington, Illinois.
Ewing, 72, testified in 2004 to an executive committee hearing of the Illinois House of Representatives that horse slaughter for human consumption should not be banned.
Ewing founded the Hooved Animal Humane Society in 1971, but she and her daughter Ronda were fired by the organization in June 2001, following prolonged friction with the board of directors over alleged mismanagement and failure to designate a successor. Ewing had reportedly already begun forming the Hooved Animal Rescue & Protection Society.
Abandonments in Idaho
While the Wadsworth disaster happened in a matter of seconds, the Coeur d’Alene Auction Yards horse starvation case only came to light over several days, after perhaps weeks of neglect. According to Idaho Press staff writer Sean Garmire, the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Department received a tip about the starving horses, and accompanied by an agent from the Idaho Department of Agriculture, discovered 15 horses at the auction yard on October 24.
“Two were dead and eight appeared malnourished,” Garmire reported. Instead of seizing the horses, the investigators instructed the owners to look after them.
“During a follow-up visit, authorities found the animals’conditions had not changed,” Garmire contined. “An additional two horses associated with the Coeur d’Alene Auction Yards were found dead at another site near Stateline on Monday.” The surviving equines were then seized and taken to Panhandle Equine Rescue.
With hay prices in Idaho having risen by more than half in recent months, horses have been abandoned at other auction sites, “including the Intermountain Livestock Market near La Grande, where one turned up last month, and on U.S. Bureau of Land Management land,” reported Richard Cockle of the Portland Oregonian. “At least nine horses have been turned loose on Wannie MacKenzie’s ranch north of Jordan Valley in the past 18 to 24 months. The Malheur County cattleman is bracing for the appearance of more, as cash-strapped owners in Idaho’s Treasure Valley run out of winter hay.”
“It’s a huge problem,” MacKenzie told Cockle.“What am I going to do with them? I don’t want 300 head of horses on my ranch.”
“Malheur County Undersheriff Brian Wolfe has investigated the abandonment of perhaps 20 domestic horses recently, “ Cockle wrote. “He tries to identify owners and charge them with animal abandonment or animal abuse, both misdemeanors, but such investigations are difficult because 90% of horses are not branded.
“I think it’s going to get to be a lot bigger problem than it is now,” Wolfe told Cockle.
Shooting in Washington
The Pasado’s Safe Haven sanctuary posted a reward of $5,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever shot the ponies found dead near Snoqualmie on November 1, 2007, but after tracing the ponies to a person in Fall City, King County Animal Care & Control announced on November 8 that no charges would be filed.
Reported Sonia Krishnan of the Seattle Times, “A necropsy determined that the animals were killed instantaneously, a key factor in determining whether the act was considered humane and therefore legal.” King County Animal Care and Control enforcement coordinator Diana Toledo told Krishnan that the 17-year-old ponies were shot because they suffered from laminitis. Toledo said that their owner had agreed to properly dispose of the bodies, which had reportedly taken four hours to winch out of the place where they were discovered.
The Idaho abandonments and Washington shootings occurred just after Animal Welfare Institute deputy director of legislation Chris Heyde wrote to Harper’s magazine that, “There has been no evidence of increased abandonment or cruelty,” as result of horse slaughter bans.
Claimed Heyde, “A U.C. Davis report conducted after California banned horse slaughter in 1998 found that horse abuse did not increase. According to the California Livestock and Identification Bureau, horse theft decreased by over 34%.”
Reports that horses have been abandoned in National Forests have been “proven wrong,” Heyde claimed. “An article from Kentucky claimed horses were being abandoned at old coalmines, but it turned out the local riding stable turns their horses loose in the winter to graze.
“The American Veterinary Medical Association is telling everyone we should keep slaughter in the U.S. because of how bad it is in Mexico,” Heyde added. “They fail to point out that they are part of a coalition with the slaughterhouses.”
The same companies, Heyde charged, “own the plants in Mexico and Canada and continue to buy U.S. horses, ship them to their plants and cruelly slaughter them, as professed by the AVMA. According to the USDA’s Guidelines for Handling and Transporting Equines to Slaughter,” Heyde said, “over 92% of the horses slaughtered are good sound horses.”