Dr. Mike Strain
From fiscal year 2006, until very recently, Congress has annually prohibited the use of federal funds to inspect horses destined for food, effectively prohibiting domestic slaughter effective 2007. Eliminating funding for inspections meant that uninspected horse meat could not be sold. Congress, faced with complaints over the unintended consequences of this ban, ordered the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a study of these effects which are contained in a June, 2011 report to Congress.
Among their most noteworthy findings were a major increase in domestic horses being exported for slaughter, primarily to Canada and Mexico. From 2006 to 2010 these exports increased to Canada by 148 percent and to Mexico by 660 percent. From the animal rights groups’ perspective this made an already bad situation worse in that horses were being transported long distances to facilities which lacked the protections for humane treatment that had previously been afforded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s regulatory oversight.
With domestic slaughter facilities closed, two additional adverse effects became apparent. First, according to GAO figures covering the period 2004-2010, horse prices, per head, suffered an 8-21 percent decline at auction sales, with the greatest price drop in the lowest price category. Without the slaughter market more of these “low-cost” horses were sold at auction and in other venues often for “pennies on the dollar.”
This very cause has been cited by numerous horse owners as the reason for the spike in local reports of horse neglect and cruelty. In a July 23 telephone interview, Louisiana Agriculture Commissioner Mike Strain pointed to this factor as well as the depressed economy for the upsurge in such cases. Dr. Strain said that he is of the opinion that state animal cruelty laws are adequate. He did note, however, that the sheer number of these “low-cost” horses and the lack of resources to enforce these laws makes for a difficult situation.
Strain’s observations are corroborated by state veterinarians, contacted by the GAO, who also reported an increase in the number of horse abandonment, neglect and cruelty cases. Due primarily to a lack of resources, at the state level, hard data to support these conclusions were not easy to come by. Two states that did collect such data were Colorado, which showed a 50 percent increase in such investigations from 2005 to 2009 and Indiana, which showed a 100 percent increase in 2006-2009. The GAO also noted that the weak state of the national economy had contributed to the increase of horse neglect and cruelty cases.
Breaux Bridge resident Glenn Patin, who has seen firsthand the result of these factors, has worked tirelessly to address horse neglect and cruelty that he alleges has taken place next door to his home. Patin related account after account of horses being severely neglected while the situation got little to no response from animal rights organizations and law enforcement authorities. He said he feels that the organizations he has provided this information to have turned a deaf ear.
Having done exhaustive research on minimum requirements for grazing, maintenance, and health and safety standards for horses – as well as the minimum annual costs involved – Patin is of the opinion that persons who buy horses at ridiculously low prices might not have the financial means nor the knowledge to properly maintain the horses.
Patin says that he and other members of the community, horsemen in particular, are outraged by the neglect and abuse that goes on unaddressed.
Some relief in the abundant supply of cheap horse may be on the horizon. According to the Nov. 29, 2011, issue of the Christian Science Monitor, federal legislation was passed that month reinstates federal funding for USDA inspection of horse meat intended for human consumption.
According to a July 19, 2012, article in USA Today, horse slaughterhouses are being planned in Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Wyoming. In Wyoming, state Rep. Sue Wallis, who wants to run slaughter operations in Missouri and Oklahoma, says that primary customers for horse meat are abroad. She goes on to say that there are markets in dozens of countries and horse meat is 40 percent cheaper than beef, so demand is rising as Europe’s economy worsens.
While renewal of funding for USDA inspection gives a green light for meat processors to resume the slaughter of horses, that does not mean the problem of a burgeoning “low-cost” horse population and the associated problems will quickly vanish.
In Texas, where two of the last three U.S. horse slaughterhouses were operating before the 2006 ban, a long-ignored state law criminalizing horse slaughter for human consumption has been brought to the fore and upheld in federal court. To reopen Texas slaughterhouses the legislature would need to repeal the 1949 law.
And it’s not just in Texas where they don’t like the idea of eating horses.
“It’s ultimately a value question on how we value horses in the United States,” said Wayne Pacelle, national president of the Humane Society. “Last thing we’re going to do is set up a commercial operation and sell the meat of dogs and cats in other countries. It’s unthinkable!”
Pacelle disputes the GAO’s conclusion that the slaughter ban contributed to abuse, neglect and abandonment. He says that the number of U.S. horses slaughtered remained constant, around 140,000, before and after the ban, whether they were killed domestically or in other countries.
Proponents of the domestic slaughter ban say there should a ban on the exportation of horses for slaughter as well. But others say that a proven demand will stymie any attempt at choking off the supply. Temple Grandin, an animal behaviorist and consultant to the livestock industry, says horses would end up in an underground market in Mexico where “there’s no supervision at all.” Instead, she advocates humane slaughter facilities and independent video monitoring to ensure that horses are not subject to undue suffering.
While the debate rages nationally, the inhumane treatment of horses here locally will in all likelihood continue unless more resources are applied to the problem.
First, we don’t slaughter animals as an answer to what is essentially a welfare problem. If you were to review public documents regarding animal welfare in previous recessions and were you to look at the broad spectrum of animal welfare which would include companion animals, farm animals, and wildlife, you would find that animals who depend on human beings for their food and care, never do well. And it is not just the low end of the market that suffers, there are horses in rescues with impressive bloodlines, horses who have won championships who are now making their new owners happy.
John Holland of the Equine Welfare Alliance did a study on the effects of rising corn, hay, and fuel prices on horse owners noting that horse owners do not get to deduct the price of feed for their animals. Hay prices have soared due to the wild fires and the USDA’s agreement to export hay to China---so US horse owners who cannot afford to pay $30.00 for a bale of horse quality hay which may have cost as little as $2.00 or $3.00 per bale eight to nine years ago have had to make some difficult decisions.
The idea that horses are being neglected because they cannot be slaughtered is a fallacy. Domestic horse slaughter has never been humane, and you can find all the evidence you need (but Charlie Stenholm, Frank Losey, and company never believed we could see at kaufmanzoning.org. An eleven month report during the last full year that horse slaughter was operational in the US (2005) will tell you more than you want to know and remember about the inherently cruel, brutal business of horse slaughter. It is not humane; it is not a process---it is brutal, merciless, butchering. Furthermore, it appears that regardless of the geographic location, undocumented workers are the main employees at horse slaughter facilities, so it doesn’t seem to matter where the horses are killed if the same hands are doing the killing.
Moreover, since 1968 the US has had a National Residue Program to test for harmful drugs and or their metabolites that remain in the tissue of the meat. A number of these drugs were first used in humans but caused adverse health reactions and continue to cause adverse health reactions because there are still ignorant and unethical producers of beef. Some of these drugs show up in post mortem tests.
Drugs that are part of the national residue program have molecules in their mixtures that bind with the tissue of the meat. Either these drugs or their metabolites never leave the meat, so when the consumer eats the filet or the roast or the horse burger, the consumer also gets a dose of the drug. Whether or not a person becomes acutely, chronically, ill as an immediate result of consuming adulterated meat can sometimes be determined, but it is difficult to trace a cancer that might develop years after consumption.
It is not reasonable to believe that veterinarians, members of Congress who serve on the Agricultural Committee or provide oversight for the USDA, EPA, or FDA could possibly be ignorant about the existence of the National Residue Program or why it exists because Congress has to fund it. Furthermore, Olsson, Frank, Weeda, PC, the firm that currently employs Charlie Stenholm, has a division dedicated to litigating on behalf of clients charged with FSIS violations.
It challenges the mind of a reasonable person to believe than anyone who would be willing to put a horse through the horror of horse slaughter in the first place could be seriously concerned about compromising the horse’s slaughter experience by having the horse travel a few hundred extra miles.
As much as we might want to think we do horse slaughter here because we are so much more humane, there is absolutely no evidence--NADA--that horses fared any better in this country than they do in Canada, Mexico, or Japan.
The absence of slaughter is not causing horses to pile up on farms. Indeed, it is the opposite. People are too afraid to let their horses go because they don’t want them to be slaughtered, so they hold onto them too long or take in more than they can feed to prevent horses going to slaughter.
Since there is no current law preventing any US horse from being sold for slaughter, it is fallacious to argue that the lack of slaughter has anything at all to do with the situation that horses find themselves in when their owners are unlucky.
In fact, the longer you look at the GAO report, the groups that contributed to it, and the horse owners who were not invited to contribute to it, as well as the various equine welfare groups or animal welfare groups effectively shut out of the discussion, the failure to address food safety or environmental hazards, it becomes pretty clear that this report was created with the intent to justify the continued breeding of high end breeders. The author of this article says as much when he specifies that the problem is with mostly “low end” horses. However, for those of us who have worked in horse rescue, this is a mischaracterization of the horses that end up in rescue. Sure, they are not all great grand-daughters of Seattle Slew, but there are some amazing horses available for a few hundred dollars. What breeders (Breed Associations, AHC, AQHA, and Veterinarians working with the new technologies hope is that they can get rid of all these excellent horses that are available for adoption and then charge the astronomically high stud fees or chilled semen for assisted reproduction for the horses they want to sell. They are cloning horses and presumably a horse cloned from the DNA of a championship calibre horse would sell for high dollars.
Slaughter never ended. It is not preventing abuse, neglect or abandonment. It never has and never will. The GAO also recommended banning slaughter and closing the borders. That is the right recommendation.
Horses are livestock and this is what happens when the salvage value of a livestock animal is removed. The H$U$, rescues and other organizations use this issue to raise millions of dollars to put in their coffers.
The animal rights activists keep talking about over breeding. The public and horse owners need to fully realize that what they actually mean is “any breeding”. I do not know of any horse breeder that is operating at the capacity that they were 10 years ago. There is not a horse registry that has not shown a decrease in numbers, and with the larger popular breeds, the drop is breath taking. The overall horse population is down. We will not know how far it has fallen until the next horse census, but there are fewer horse sales, many boarding stables are closing or operating at below capacity, there are fewer horse shows and suppliers have seen a dramatic drop in feed and other supplies being bought. Horse shoers now pursue new clients when they use to have an established client base and many young horse trainers are leaving the field because of the drop in young horses being produced.
First, the HSUS and any other Animal RIGHTS organizations had very little to do with getting the horse slaughter plant inspection funds taken away from the USDA. It was the people of Illinois and Texas that finally got the hated plants closed, and Congress defunded the inspections.
Second, you HARVEST corn, NOT horses! Slaughter by any other name is still SLAUGHTER and it's brutally inhumane - always has been, always will be. Even Temple Grandin acknowledges that we don't have a way to humanely slaughter horses. Besides, if slaughter isn't preventing "excess" horses, why shouldn't we just give up on it? We've had 30 years of unabated horse slaughter. What problems has it solved? Not over population obviously.
There was a YEAR between closing of the slaughter plants and the real hit from the recession. During that time, the price of horses held. Naturally, the recession hit the horse industry very hard - just like every other industry in the country. The price dropped out the bottom for EVERYONE. Why in the world do you pros continue to insist that the closing of the slaughter plants is the problem - especially since we've been consistently sending more horses to slaughter per year than we did when the domestic plants were open? Is that what's causing every other industry to collapse too? Economics 101 - supply and demand. When supply is far greater than demand, prices plummet. Maybe that's your problem, huh?
The only "abandonment" that has any hard proof at all is being done by the killers themselves. They are taking horses rejected by the slaughter plants to a remote area and abandoning them. Over 5,000 of these horses have been identified - so far.
As far as length of rides go, it depends on where one starts out, don't you think? Besides, the rides were ALWAYS long - we only had three plants in the entire United States remember. As for regulation, the big commercial plants in Mexico, most of the Canadian plants and OUR domestic plants were owned and regulated by the SAME people. The plants are owned by companies in a Belgian/Dutch consortium and regulated by the European Union. They are all - including ours - regulated exactly the same way, under the same rules.
You might be surprised to learn that the FDA considers horses to be "Companion Animals," and do NOT regulate them like they do food-producing animals. AND, horse owners like me and most other recreational riders do NOT get tax breaks for feed or anything else. Our horses ARE companions, partners, best friends, family members - NOT LIVESTOCK! Their values to us are unchanged - and drop the "salvage value." We are repelled by such a concept. WE do not think of our horses as "salvage," and find that word as offensive as substituting "processing" for slaughter. Do you think you're fooling anyone by using these ridiculous terms? Well, you aren't.
I don't understand how you think the HSUS used this issue to raise millions. Speaking of non-profits, what has the non-profit United Horsemen done for horses lately? All I know about is their lobbying activities. It's not legal for them to lobby and nothing else, but I haven't heard of them sponsoring any rescues or anything else. Oh yeah, you pros try to convince everyone of the canard that ALL rescues are just ways to collect horses for slaughter. Judge everyone by yourselves I guess.
I don't think anyone is talking about NO breeding forever and ever, but cutting way down during a severe recession is what everyone does - except horse breeders. The breeders glutted the market during an extremely severe recession. Honestly, what did they expect? That's the way it is during a recession. Maybe all of you should take some Economics classes. Of course there's been a drop in all horse activities, but HOW do you connect THAT to slaughter, pray tell? People can't afford to go to as many shows and such as they did before. Checked the price of gas lately? As I said, it's the same for EVERYONE. You'll just have to tough out the recession like everyone else. The horse market will recover when all the other markets recover and not before.
80% of Americans and 71% of horse owners are strongly opposed to human consumption horse slaughter. Surely you don't think 80% of the American population is Vegan. I don't think so. This "Vegan Conspiracy" line is getting very old. Just like the Big Lie about all the "unwanted" horses has been debunked so many times I would think you'd stop using it.
By the way, why don't you pros ever mention the food safety issues that arise from humans eating unregulated non-food producing animals like horses? What about the bute, omeperazole, and all the other banned substances in horse medications and other widely used products? How about the fact that the EU - THE market for our horse meat - has stated that after July 31, 2013 they will no longer accept our horses for slaughter unless we have implemented a traceability system comparable to their passport system? We haven't implemented ANY traceability system for horses and are not likely to do so. What then?
You horse "processors" can lie and spin all you want, but you've got ONE year before the EU pulls the plug.
First, everyone knows by now that the GAO report to which you refer was so compromised as to be worthless. It was virtually written by ex-Congressman Charlie Stenholm - who now works as a lobbyist for meat packers - and other widely known pro-slaughter advocates. NOTHING taken from anti-slaughter sources was included. Besides that, Ole Charlie and the others knew what was in the report weeks before it was publicly released. There is MUCH more, but suffice it to say that you did not see fit to mention that this report had TWO equally weighted recommendations - one of which was for Congress to revisit passing laws to prohibit the slaughter of horses for human consumption and banning the transport of horses across borders for the purpose of slaughter. Exactly what the bills stuck in Committee in both House and Senate would do. Strange, isn't it, that NO ONE ever mentions that recommendation.
We have had unfettered slaughter - since our plants have been closed we've sent MORE horses to slaughter than when domestic plants were open! - for 30 years. What problems has it solved? Certainly NOT overpopulation - which any idiot could see was caused by our great recession and the failure of the big horse breeders to understand the idea of supply and demand. Actually, the presence of slaughter us what started all the irresponsible, "shotgun" breeding in the first place. The only cure for it is to absolutely BAN horse slaughter for human consumption.
The GAO report also ignored the insurmountable problem of food safety when using unregulated, non-food animals. Horses are not food animals in the US, and they are not regulated like food animals. Their meds and other widely used products contain ingredients that are totally BANNED from use in ANY food animal for ANY reason. One exposure renders any animal unfit for human consumption PERMANENTLY. NO withdrawal times for banned substances.
Our government bows to deep pockets special interests that don't care if they do poison children overseas - not as long as they make $$$$.