Stop the Slaughter

Humans have loved and depended on horses for centuries. They pulled our plows and carriages, bore our soldiers into battle, and carried man over unknown horizons. As John Trotwood Moore so aptly phrased it, "Wherever man has left his footprints in the long ascent from barbarism to civilization, we find the hoof print of a horse beside it." In most places in the modern world, man no longer requires the labor of his equine partner. Instead they have become Olympic athletes, friends, companions, pets. According to a 2001 American Veterinary Medicine Association study, only 5.7% of horse owners view horses as property. In contrast, 55.2 % view them as a pet or companion and 39.1% see their horse as a family member. Why, then, do 90,000 horses per year find their end in one of three American horse slaughterhouses?

The slaughterhouse is a grisly place no matter the animal in question. While FDA regulations require the animal to be rendered unconscious prior to death, the carcass will only bleed out properly is the animal is still living when the throat is slit. A device called a captive bolt gun is used in both the horse and cattle slaughter industries. The gun drives a four inch spike into the animal's brain, rendering it unconscious without harming the brainstem, allowing life sustaining functions such as breathing and heartbeat to continue while leaving the creature unconscious. This is a horrific, yet efficient method in the cattle industry. For horses, however, with their longer necks and heads, it is far less effective. Their long necks enable them to maneuver away from the gun, and their longer heads make finding the brain a difficult task for many plant workers. Eyewitness accounts from former plant workers indicate that many horses are inadequately stunned and remain fully conscious while they are hung by one leg from a conveyor belt and their throats are slit. The meat is packaged and shipped by air – US law, under the 1985 Export Administration Amendments Act, prohibits the shipment of horsemeat by sea - to markets in Italy, Belgium, France, and Japan where it sells at prices of up to $25 per pound.

The 1972 Wild Horse and Burro Act provided protection for America's wild horses against slaughter. It was a step in the right direction but fails to protect domesticated horses sold at auctions by unsuspecting owners to kill buyers. In 1998, California enacted the Prohibition on Slaughter of Horses and Sale of Horsemeat for Human Consumption Initiative Statute, commonly called Proposition Six. Several bills hoping the create a national version of California's Proposition Six are currently pending in Congress, but without adequate enforcement, no amount of legislation can effectively stop this $300 million per year industry.

This industry provides little revenue for the US. Many proponents of horse slaughter argue that the plants provide jobs and economic output. The three plants operating in the United States are all foreign owned and, together, employ fewer than 200 people. The plants could be easily converted into cattle, sheep, or pork processing plants, which would provide more jobs and taxable revenue.

Ironically, this 'gourmet meat' may have serious health effects. American horses are routinely given medications labeled NOT FOR USE IN ANIMALS INTENDED FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION. Of course, most horse owners never intend for their pet to be sautéed in southern France and have no second thoughts about that yearly Ivermectin. Horses are given a myriad of drugs that are potentially harmful to the consumer, including: penicillin, bute (phenylbutazone), ace promazine (promazine hydrochloride), banamine (flunixin meglumine), wormers (antihelmintics), Nolvansan (a topical salve), betadine scrub, Kopertox (hoof care), and SWAT (fly repellent). Medications aside, horsemeat may also carry diseases. Because horse meat is not eaten here in America, it is often neglected by the USDA. Routine equine necropsies do not check for Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies. The filthy, double-decker trucks used to transport horses to slaughter have been shown to carry trichinosis which, if the meat is not properly cooked (as in Japan), is easily transmitted to the human consumer. Horses are not considered a food animal in the United States and are not subject to the restrictions placed of food animals. This creates an unregulated industry producing unsafe meat.

The indignity of a slaughterhouse death is incongruous with the American love of horses. How can we possibly reconcile images of foals cut from their mothers' wombs and thrown, still struggling for life, into the garbage with those of a wild stallion, noble steed, or humble workhorse? How can we justify an industry that operates without the scrutiny of governing bodies such as the USDA and FDA? How can we allow dangerously contaminated meat to be distributed throughout the world, stamped 'A Taste of Texas?' Millions of horses have met their ends in the dark, bloody kill chambers of America's three horse slaughter facilities in the last several decades. How many more will die before America removes the blinders of ignorance and says 'whoa?'

[Inspired by an article by PJ K /viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976758607  and by my own darling thoroughbred, who was once an 'alpo horse.']