Discuss: Dark Horse

Thank you for this article. A stark reminder that little has changed in the 20+ years since I was involved with the horse world.

However, the article generated an idea that does actually make me feel hopeful. Since this is all legal because horses are considered livestock, working to change their designation would ensure this stops altogether.

I do not know what the alternative would be, “domestic animal” status perhaps? Whatever it needs to be, it would end the slaughter of these beloved beasts.

Would someone with some legislative and organizing savvy care to lead this change?

This article was quite disturbing.  Amazing how humanity just uses everything up and then throws it away, animals included.  I wish I could save all of them.

Thought this was a very detailed and well-written article by Lisa Couturier.  But if there really are 9 million horses in the US, what’s our national plan for dealing with unwanted or unsound animals that cannot be placed with new owners or sent to retirement farms?

Outlawing horse slaughter in the U.S. has exacerbated this problem with some unintended consequences.  While there is no excuse for the inhumane treatment of any animal, closing down the U.S. plants has only served to push the slaughter and processing of horses for human consumption outside the control of our federal meat inspection system.  While it is certain that there were human handling abuses at US plants in the past, USDA has recently made the enforcement of humane slaughter for food animals one of their top priorities.  Prohibiting horse slaughter in this country only works to guarantee that unwanted horses will be killed in an inhumane way.

There is also the question of the impacts that horses have on the environment.  In suburban America, an untold number of acres have been cleared and put into poorly managed horse pasture.  It very common to see too many horses grazing too few acres, eating the vegetation down to nothing, creating soil erosion and water quality problems.  How much wildlife habitat and how many native ecosystems have been destroyed for the benefit of pet horses?  What will be the future implications for natural resources as more land is used to maintain these animals?

Today we’re seeing more and more horse owners give up their animals for economic reasons.  Very old and infirm horses are becoming a common site in rural America, often placed there by well meaning landowners who are ill-equipped or lack the financial resources to provide for the long term needs of these animals.  Who’s to say what would be more humane, a quick death in a monitored and inspected slaughter facility, or a slow, lingering one on an undersized patch of bare dirt? 

Horses and all living creatures deserve our respect.  They should not be disposed of like refuse.  But when horse numbers become a problem to due to human mismanagement we should have multiple tools and management solutions at our disposal to keep things in check. There is a need for balance on this issue.

This is a 2 minute broadcast I that ran on NPR about a horse I rode for the National Park Service and what happened when she could no longer serve. This story has a happy ending, but horses that work for the government are often discarded when their career is over.
http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R71029737

“But if there really are 9 million horses in the US, what’s our national plan for dealing with unwanted or unsound animals that cannot be placed with new owners or sent to retirement farms?”

Like most anti-slaughter folks, I am of the opinion that humane euthanasia is a fine option for dealing with the (truly) unwanted horse population. Every animal deserves a humane death, not a death of fear, torture, and suffering. It is the METHOD of their “disposal” that is the problem, NOT death itself.

It is also worth noting that while the racing industry’s national org, the NTRA, is against slaughter, the AQHA (American Quarter Horse Assoc), AVMA (American Veterinary Medical Assoc), and AAEP (American Association of Equine Practioners), and the AHC (American Horse Council) DO support slaughter. And although the racing world is usually the first to come to mind as the discipline which most frequently slaughters horses, only 10% of those on the truck to the borders are Thoroughbreds.

AQHA wants to promote breeding; more foals mean more registration fees and so supports big breeders getting that $300 for culls, the old and the injured, rather than paying for euthanasia and disposal.

The AVMA says it only supports humane slaughter. Unfortunately mass factory processing by unskilled workers where the bottom line is most important, by its very nature, is not and will never be humane - if it was, it would likely cease to be profitable.

In 2006 the AAEP said “AAEP believes that slaughter is not the ideal solution for addressing the large number of unwanted horses in the U.S.” but contends horse slaughter carried out in Mexico is humane and so endorses it.

The AHC has waffled but has settled on saying that slaughter is a “necessary evil” at the same time as acknowledging changes are needed to the way horses are slaughtered.

Also, for the rec, it is only horse slaughter *for human consumption* that is currently illegal in the U.S.

My daughter is a veterinary cardiologist.  She completed her residency at the University of Pennsylvania.  That vet school is in the College of Medicine-not agriculture.  I wish this was true for all vet schools.
I also support humane euthanasia for all species, what the article discribes is not humane euthanasia but brutal slaughter for profit.
If humans continue to view other species asfood source then humans should let them be raised and killed humanely

I remember going to the livestock auction with Grandpa about 30 years ago in rural Missouri.  We’d go once about once a year with our cattle, and once a year with our pigs. 
They had big stock-trailers outside the auction ring filled with unwanted horses.  Grandpa told me they were going to “the soap plant.”  It’s been thirty years and I still remember the face of a big draft horse in the trailer with what they call a “glass eye”, and I remember wishing I had the money to buy that horse and let him live out his life on our pastures. 
In ten years or so, I’ll be retired and going back to the farm.  In the mean time, I don’t want to visit any livestock auctions and see the faces of horses destined for the slaughterhouses.

About 5 miles from where I sit, there is a farmer who also raises thoroughbred horses.  If the market is down, he sells his horses for slaughter at half the price because he doesn’t want to depress the value of his stock.  In other words, he’ll take less money to insure the horse is killed. 

There are some hard men in that business.

I work with Minneosta Retired Racehorse Project, rehabbing and rehoming OTTB’s that are no longer useful to their owners/trainers.  I deeply appreciate the depth of this article.  I am so tired of people saying “I don’t want to know” as if they are just too darned sensitive to handle the knowledge of what happens to these horses.  There is no easy solution, but we all need to do what we can.  Just like the woman in the story, the 3 of us who run our program are totally broke, but we work hard for these horses and every placement is a victory, one less potentially on the truck to Canada. If everyone who is bothered by what goes on donated to their local struggling rescues, volunteered, lobbied, etc., something would be done, many would be saved.  It’s a start.