by Jane Briggs-Bunting
Horses could once again be on the dinner menu for U.S. consumers overturning a five year ban that shuttered U.S. horse slaughterhouses.
Horse meat is considered a delicacy by those epicurean connoisseurs in places like France and Japan.
President Obama signed an Agricultural appropriations bill on November 18 that included a provision for funding inspections of horse slaughterhouses. Reports the Washington Times, ”The ban had been imposed in 2006 when Congress defunded the government’s ability to inspect plants that butchered horses for consumption. Without inspections, the meat couldn’t be sold, and the industry withered.”
The new bill included money for inspections, and that means horses are back, literally, on the chopping block. The House spending bill continued the slaughterhouse ban, the Senate version did not. The horses lost in the conference committee. The change makes a lot of ranchers in places like Montana happy.
That’s not to say that things have gone well for equines before and after the 2006 ban. In places like Missoula, MT, horses, including adopted wild mustangs and old ranch horses, are routinely bought at auction and shipped north to Canada for slaughter. From start to finish the process many times has been under fire from groups like the Humane Society of the U.S. Terrified horses are jammed in to double-decker trailers and trucked for hundreds of miles to slaughterhouses just over the Canadian border.
Any horse from pricey thoroughbreds and Arabs to grade horses and rounded-up wild mustangs are all included. There are no particular breeds, like in cattle or poultry, that make better cuts of meat. Horses aren’t bred like those animals and other for meat.
One of the disgraces of the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse and Burro adoption program is the number of horses “adopted” by enterprising owners, turned out on federal land to graze, then rounded up a year and a day later when the buyer becomes the titled owner and hauled off to auction for slaughter. This despite the fact, adopters must sign a statement that they won’t do this.
Though on its website, the BLM reports it “has placed more than 225,000 wild horses and burros into private care since 1971. Many of those animals have become excellent pleasure, show, or work horses.” It has never to my knowledge followed up to inventory what happens to some of those animals. That’s one reason the mustang advocacy groups try to closely watchdog the BLM.
A good slaughterhouse will invest two bullets in the killing process. The horses are herded individually through a shoot where they are shot twice in the head, a rear leg hooked and swung upside down as they go on the conveyer belt to be bled out and cut up. Everything is used. I know. I’ve seen this.
In a story on the mustangs I covered two decades ago, I visited a horse auction in Missoula, followed a bunch of horses sold to the buyer from a Canadian slaughterhouse, and watched the process. I became a vegetarian that same day.
The horse that most haunts my memories was not a mustang (though every horse on the death ride bothered me), but an old, raw-boned white mare with a swayback and bad hocks. She’d probably taught a half dozen kids to ride, herded cattle and worked her whole life. Her owner, whoever he was, didn’t have the decency or the money to have her euthanized humanely or the courage to end her life himself with his own rifle. Instead, he sold her for a few dollars.
She arrived in that auction ring terrified. Looking in the stands for her people. She cried out over and over again. Her eyes rolling in fear. She only got one bid. The buyer from the Canadian slaughterhouse. She was herded into the truck, a big girl who was crammed in with others. She died with two bullets to her head early the next morning.
Jane, is your issue with horse slaughter that the horses are not slaughtered humanely, or that they’re being slaughtered and consumed at all?
Sensationalistic. Horse meat isn’t sold in the U.S., there isn’t a market. Pricey horses (implying a value higher than killer buyers will pay) don’t sell to killers, they sell to riders. If a slaughter buyer wins the auction, it’s because the horse isn’t pricey. It may, however, be a purebred Arab or Thoroughbred. Sadly, the alternative to domestic markets is a meat processor in Canada or Mexico. While Canada’s humane standards are probably better than or equal to ours, Mexico’s surely are not. Either way, the distance can be far in those double-decker trucks you abhor. Ultimately, bad decisions mean bad outcomes for the animals. If you care, breed with care. Sell your horses with care. Give them value and purpose for life, or don’t bring life to unwanted horses. The responsibility lies with the individual.
We should never have laws against anything because responsibility lies with the individual.
i am against horse slaughter and have seen video’s myself and see the fear,restlessness,horses reacting to others ,they smell the blood, sense the fear, i could not think of doing such a thing to my horses , i am horse owner not breeder, the only humane way to kill a horse is to euthanasize it. give it that last decent option we can do to our companion friend. horses are not for human food, ever read the label on medicines, says right on them not for animals intended for human comsumption. so no way would i eat it. also in the bible states that humans are not to eat any animal without a split hoof. i really hope the new movie war horse will open the eyes of the people who think horses are stupid ,dumb , animals i pray u will have a change of heart after seeing this movie , cause it’s gonna get alot of press!!
The starvation or negligent care of an animal is a criminal offense in this country. The economic state is not a license to kill. Any horse owner with sound mind and the slightest amount of compassion would simply put the animal to sleep as a last resort. The cost to do so is around $200. This country bought up more Xboxes on Black Friday 2011 then in 2010. The cost of an Xbox is $400. We are not so broke after all. We simply lack priorities.
Pro Slaughter advocates wish you to believe that the closing of US based slaughter plants resulted in the countryside is teaming with masses of skinny, starving horses all tromping through State and National Parks . The estimated figure of all the “unwanted horses” in the US is actually around 1% and more importantly, 92% of all horses sent to slaughter are young and healthy. And to combat such a weak argument, the horse slaughter loophole is still in full effect. They simply ship the horrified fright and flight animal to Mexico or Canada.
Horse Slaughter is for profit. Predatory industries will use a flurry of excuses to gain support and continue to make their sale.
This is a public service announcement (PSA) created to raise awareness and support for the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (S. 1176/H.R. 2966).
FBela and sharon t – Again, I ask you what’s the fundamental difference between slaughtering a horse and slaughtering a cow? I know that cattle slaughterhouses are specifically designed to keep the cows calm until it’s very quickly killed with a spike into the brain. Is the issue that horse slaughterhouses aren’t humane? Or is it because horses are mythologized as part of the American psyche and are thus considered pets and/or companions by many (unlike cows)?
Before you preach about the horror of horse slaughter, please answer the question.
I personally am troubled at the slaughter of any sentient creatures.
Our society wraps its food up in plastic, puts it in a cooler and
labels dead cows as steak, hamburger, rib roast, etc. For pigs, by far
considered among the most intelligent of creatures, we call it pork
chops, pork roast and bacon. Lamb we call lamb. Fowl retains its
identity. Fish does, too, except for the so-called “fish sticks.” We
raise cattle, pigs, chicken, lamb, turkey, duck and even fish for
food. Sadly, it’s their fate.
I personally have no problem with folks who live off their land. They
raise their crops, their livestock, and hunt and fish and forage to
feed themselves and their families. And there are still some folks who
do that. But the vast majority of us drive to the market and buy our
food wrapped in plastic with no clear idea of how it got there. Kids
are not taught that hamburgers come from cows and bacon from pigs.
In the U.S., we raise horses to race them, ride them, and, in the
Amish culture, still use them for transportation and cultivation. And
they are companion animals and pets, too. Likely that is part of the
mindset that is repulsed by the idea of slaughtering horses. If the
proposal was for a dolphin canning plant, there would be a similar
outcry.
I’ve been to what was considered a “good” horse slaughter house, but
the terror of those horses was palpable and audible.
I’m vegetarian by choice. I don’t hold others to that. With horses
it’s a mental thing. To me they are among the most beautiful and
graceful of creatures on the planet. I’ve been horse crazy since I was
eight-years-old and read “The Black Stallion” by Walter Farley. I’ve
owned horses and kept them through old age and held them with tears
streaming down my face when the vet humanely put my pal to sleep. My
vet cried, too.
In the U.S., most would avoid horse meat. It’s been offered at meat
markets in Detroit back in the 1970s and 1980s, and it didn’t sell
well.
I put it on the same level as eating dogs and cats. Would you eat that
meat?? Is there any difference with horses or cows of pigs or chicken?
The Chinese are among the largest consumers of cat, dog and horse meat
in the world. Just like lobster in a tank at a fancy restaurant, you
can pick your pup for a meal at many restaurants in China. Puppies
will be tied up outside barking and whining. When you leave the
restaurant later, their numbers have dwindled substantially.
I prefer plain rice, beans and noodles.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply, Jane.
You ask whether I’d eat dog and cat meat, and I have to say that I probably would – if the meat I was eating came from an animal that was raised specifically for food and not someone’s pet or a cast-off from a pet store. And I’d probably eat horse too, but I don’t personally have any love (or hate) for horses nor feel any cultural mythological connection to them. However, a horse that was a pet or companion should be accorded the same respect that any pet would be and treated accordingly.
What it comes down to for me is that I’m not willing to apply my own cultural biases for or against foods to other cultures unless there’s a compelling reason. I have serious issues with eating endangered animals in general (because they’re endangered) and many primates (because they’re so closely related to humans), but that’s really about it. Marine mammals are a gray area for me for a host of reasons.
With regard to horses specifically, I personally feel that horses intended for slaughter should be raised for slaughter, and the way the animals are slaughtered should be humane. What you describe in the OP doesn’t sound humane to me, so it seems reasonable to me to pause horse slaughter until it can be made humane. But fundamentally, if the slaughter can be made humane, then I see no reason why horses should not be slaughtered for meat.
My issue is certainly that they are slaughtered in the first place… I know a lot of humans that take up more space, time, effort, money and care than what they “produce” and we don’t send them to slaughter (yet).
Take care in what is done to the weakest among us… For our turn – set by precedent – will soon be next.