Petition filed to reauthorize humane horse processing
October 11, 2011 at 3:43 pm in Worthington Daily Globe
Market, economy leave some horses unwanted, abandoned
SIBLEY, Iowa At one time, there were more than 20 horse processing facilities scattered throughout the country, but today the number of plants that can process the animals legally has dwindled to just a few. Now, horse producers and national associations are stepping in to try and turn the tide. Continue Reading
You have certainly managed to repeat every untruth that is being circulated by the Pro-Horse Slaughter contingent. In a word, there is no shortage of opportunities for American horses to go to slaughter. Every Auction has “killer Buyers” that buy horses to send to slaughter in Mexico and Canada. The numbers of American Horses slaughtered has barely lessened in the last 4 years since the last Horse Slaughter Plant closed in the USA. So lack of Slaughter is hardly the reason that some horses are unwanted and the prices of horses have gone down. The answer is (to quote a President) “It’s the ECONOMY, stupid.” Every industry has been effected by the downturn. The building industry does not keep on building homes that no one can buy. The Horse Industry should not be breeding horses that no one can afford….but they still do, and some including the AQHA and APHA continue to reward overbreeding and support Horse Slaughter. There are so many other valid reasons which support the outlawing of this inhumane and unnecessary end to the lives of horses which were never raised to be meat; they are the companions, sport partners, therapy mounts, and Symbols of the Freedom of our Country.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Of course the AQHA wants to reopen slaughter plants. Their registration fees alone bring in millions of dollars each year. They have no desire to promote responsible breeding, owner responsibility, or HUMANE euthanasia as doing so would cut into their profits.
As for all the ‘stories’ about horses being turned loose, NONE of them have been substantiated. If there are branded horses running free throughout the west as pro slaughter would like you to believe, why haven’t they captured a single one of them? Why haven’t the brands been tracked back to the owner who should then be charged? Who are the people who see these domesticated horses running free and how are they determining that the horses are domesticated and have been abandoned on the plains? Repeating a story doesn’t make it reality.
The fact of the matter is that the Canadian and Mexican plants have contracts to fill. Slaughter is demand driven just like any other industry. The kill buyers and plants are not providing any service to horse owners – they are simply filling contracts and making money. The fact that horse meat is laden with banned substances such as bute and dewormers is not an issue for them. After all, they aren’t about to eat horse meat and they really don’t care if some kid overseas get aplastic anemia from eating it.
Slaughter isn’t about personal property rights either. Personal property laws refer only to the right to own property NOT disposal. There isn’t a single town or city in the entire country that doesn’t have regulations on disposal of our property.
Ending horse slaughter is not an attack on agriculture. Horses are not raised or treated as food producing animals.
The 1% of owners that ship to slaughter should not be able to dictate how the 99% of us treat our horses. Should the slaughter plants reopen all of us true horsemen and women will pay. The EU is implementing additional safeguards that will eventually require US equine owners and veterinarians to document every dose of every medication and dewormer we routinely give our horses to keep them healthy. Why should my expenses increase because the mega breeders and Billy Bob down the road want to make $50 by selling their poorly bred culls?
We’ve bailed out enough industries in the US. Those who continue to produce a product that has no market shouldn’t be rewarded for their ignorance by the promise of floor (kill) price.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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I am very disappointed you’d print this without doing some fact checking.
While it might have been true 20some horse processing plants existed in the US, the author is missing the point: they closed long ago because it’s simply not profitable. The 3 remaining ones hung on to supply meat overseas, but they were such a blight on the towns they were in, area residents were the ones asking they be closed.
While it’s true those 3 processing plants offered jobs, the truth is combined all three plants employed about 150 people total. The vast majority of the jobs were inside the work line — low paying, high injury, no health benefits, hard work, and high turn-over. When these almost-minimum-wage workers got hurt (as they eventually do), the turn to taxpayers who fund Medicaid to cover their medical expenses because the horse meat companies would not take responsibility. In the years leading up to the plants’ closures, reports were that the jobs were so bad that Americans wouldn’t take them; immigrants were the ones filling most of the positions.
150 people total for all of the US horse processing: that’s *less* than the jobs created by my local WalMart super center. And unlike horsemeat processing, Walmart employees get some benefits, don’t have the injury rate, and aren’t exposed to dangerous pathogens.
The processing plants became a huge burden. Local property values were hurt. Who wants to live along the road where crowded horse trucks travel each day or where blood and offal is sometimes spilled? The low paying jobs attract unskilled workers who need the least expensive type of housing. The town that supports the plant must now pay for upgrades on its sewage treatment plant because of the sheer volume of blood (laden with drug residue) and other waste products. This increases tax burdens on the whole town. While the US plants were open, sanitary and health violations were an ongoing problem. Biohazardous spills leaked out of containment tanks or from trucks. Basically the town community suffers in order to provide cheap horsemeat processing to the European gourmet meat importer.
What about the revenue it generates? Thanks to corporate games, loopholes, and an undervaluing of the finished meat, these corporations got away with paying almost nothing in state and federal taxes. One processing plant, Dallas Crown, paid a mere $5.00 in federal taxes while handing what amounted to millions of dollars of meat.
As someone who has a horse and who works in the industry, I can attest we (the horse community) do not want or need such a thing. I have people offering to give me good horses, not because they can’t sell them, but because they’re so horrified by horse slaughter that they don’t feel SAFE selling at any auction. It’s gotten so bad there are some people who scour the cheap/free horse ads, pretends to be a “good home” (lying to the owners), and immediately takes the horse to a meat sale; I have seen this firsthand. Slaughter is a top reason why horses are stolen. Ownership is not verified when the horse is sold to a ‘kill buyer’ or when the processing plant purchases it. When the state of California passed its own ban on horse slaughter, neglect did not increase but theft did go DOWN 34% in the years following. Until we shut down this unnecessary business, no horse is safe.
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I congratulate all the above commenters for providing some of the best, most-enlightened, well-researched information I’ve ever seen in areavoices… unbiased, fact-based, rational. I learned a lot today. Thanks.
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Thank you. I live in a town that has a salesbarn that sells horses to horse slaughter. It is a pitiful sight. The condition these horses are in is a total tragedy with scars and open wounds, and all signs of obvious owner neglect and abuse. Birds of a feather hang together and if you even try to speak up, you’ll have the entire redneck community all over you like ugly on an ape. They are the scrap iron dealers of the horse trade business. You have never been bullied until you’ve been picked out of the crowd by a bunch of redneck horse-beaters. Your worst experiences in high school quickly becomes a fond memory by comparison to the bullying these redneck horse beaters will put you through.
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Who is this guy? He doesn’t know the facts about slaughter and he says this petition was created by “a Wyoming woman”?? Is he so out of touch with this topic that he doesn’t know that Sue Wallis is the Queen of horse slaughter in this country, nicknamed Slaughterhouse Sue, and is a Wyoming legislator fighting to reinstate this business filled with crime and fraud.
This guy is truly clueless.
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