138,000 Horses Sentenced to Slaughter Death in 2012

Wednesday December 28 2011

If we can go by last year's statistics from the US Government Accountability Office report*, which estimated 138,000 US horses were transported to Canada and Mexico for slaughter, we can expect the same number of horses to go to slaughter in 2012.

But that won't happen in this country, because even though our government just paved the way for the return of US horse slaughter by lifting the ban on funding horse meat inspections, it likely won't happen any time soon.

But is this a victory or defeat? I suggest we ask one of the 138,000 horses that will, next year, be stuffed into an overcrowded, undersized double decker that's too small for the horse to stand upright, and shipped two thousand miles with no stops for food or water, unloaded at a Mexican slaughter plant, where his spine will be stabbed with ice-picks till a near-death state, and then ultimately cut up for meat once he dies.

From 2006 through 2010, U.S. horse exports for slaughter increased by 148 percent to Canada and 660 percent to Mexico. This is approximately the same number that were slaughtered in the US before it was banned here. Do the math again: the same number of horses are now slaughtered annually in Canada and (the majority) in Mexico as were slaughtered before slaughter was banned in the US in 2007. From the same report, horse neglect and abandonment has increased since 2007.*

I don't believe that anti-slaughter people favor this slaughter option in Canada and Mexico for all these horses every year; yet I have not heard this addressed by any of the anti-slaughter groups. If you are anti-slaughter in the US, do you consider yourself pro-slaughter in Canada and Mexico? That's how it sometimes comes across. (The cruelty of the some of the horse slaughter-in-Mexico debacle has been well documented - the brutal transportation to slaughter, the agonizing deaths many horses go through - look it up on the internet, I'm not providing the links here).

The concern for slaughtered horses only seems to come up when there's a possibility of it happening here in our back yard. NIMBY - Not In My Back Yard - does this apply to our unwanted horses? We don't want to deal with the problem? By not having horse slaughter plants in the US since 2007, the problem has been out of sight and out of mind, but it still happens. Is this what we want? It seems like that is the opposite of what we want.

I ask the anti-slaughter people: do you really consider this lifting of the slaughter ban a defeat? Or is the lifting of this ban on horse slaughter an opportunity, putting in your hands the power to push for humane slaughter for over a hundred thousand horses a year?

Read this sentence: there has always been horse slaughter, and there will always be horse slaughter for over 130,000 U.S. horses a year. You can choose to not like the statement, and you can choose to ignore it if you wish, but the fact does not go away. Horse slaughter still exists.

Read it again: Over 130,000 U.S. horses a year are slaughtered and will be slaughtered, either here in the US, or in Canada and Mexico.

Personally, I would like a happy fluffy ending for every one of the excess, unwanted 138,000 horses every year year, to be cared for comfortably the rest of their lives by somebody, but it's not happening. I would like excess breeding to stop, but it's not happening. I would like all people who own horses to humanely put their horses down when the time comes, but it doesn't happen.

The Thoroughbred industry has come a long way in finally recognizing the annual plight of thousands of unwanted racehorses after their racing careers are over, and actually doing something about it, because of the hard work of so many individuals and groups advocating for the racing industry to start taking some responsibility for the horses who work so hard to make the sport and who ARE the sport.

If all well-meaning anti-slaughter groups and anti-suffering groups put as much energy into providing a real alternative solution to the 138,000 horses going to slaughter in Canada and Mexico every year - such as the passage of laws and their enforcement for humane transportation to slaughter in the US, and the funding and passage of laws and their enforcement of slaughter inspectors in the US (to make sure stolen horses are not slaughtered and that the process is indeed conducted humanely) - as they do into being against slaughter but offering no viable alternative - 138,000 horses a year would face a more humane option of death. If the pro-slaughter groups would put their efforts into better US slaughterhouse solutions and the enforcement of the laws involving them (and some of these groups are doing just that), we would all accomplish something.

Will we let this opportunity to lessen the suffering, and sometimes torture of horses go? Do we prefer to continue ignoring the plight of 138,000 horses a year that will be slaughtered no matter where? Is it easier and more satisfying just to be angry and not look for a solution?

Whether we are anti-slaughter, or pro-slaughter, I believe we are ALL united in our desire to alleviate suffering for the horses we love. If horses must be slaughtered - and there will ALWAYS be horse slaughter - it is better that it is controlled and regulated and made more humane in our backyard, which we now once again have the power to implement, instead of in another country, where we have no say, or where we can look away, turn our backs and pretend it does not exist, or affect us.

By conveniently ignoring the hundred thousand horses a year dying in Canadian or Mexican slaughterhouses, by closing our minds to the chance to provide and enforce humane, regulated slaughter here in the US, we are doing the opposite of what we really want: providing a compassionate ending to the lives of our wonderful friends.


*www.gao.gov/assets/320/319935.pdf