TuesdaysHorse.wordpress.com
November 2009
KETV Channel 7 ABC Omaha opens a report with this:
Horse neglect borders on crisis across Nebraska and across the country. Many horse owners blame the problem on U.S. law, which forbids federal spending on inspections of horse meat for sale overseas.
They said the ban has led to the demise of all slaughterhouses for horses in the United States and the collapse of the horse market.
Horse owners contend the result is often neglect and, in some cases, abandonment of aging horses.
Later in the story, it states:
Nebraska State Sen. Cap Dierks said those alternatives [getting rid of your unwanted horse] are few.
“The only place I can take a horse to get rid of it is out in the pasture,” he said. “Dig a hole and shoot him.”
He wants lawmakers to explore alternatives, including allowing kill operations in Nebraska.
Oh, is that another paid mouthpiece for horse slaughter plant owners we hear? Their arguments are predictably the same.
Anyway, consider this.
HORSE SLAUGHTER
This country was built on the backs of horses. Horses revolutionized travel, the military, farming, and enriched our lives in ways too many to enumerate here.
Horses, whatever role they play today — working, sport, therapy, recreational — are companion animals as defined by the AVMA and other veterinary groups. Ending their lives with a butcher’s knife is a gross act of betrayal.
So what? Try these facts.
HORSE OWNERSHIP
Finally, a quote in the report from Debbie Brehm of American Quarter Horse [AQHA].
Slaughter is not pretty, but it does provide a humane economical way for an owner to relinquish an unwanted horse.
This from an organization that makes millions of dollars from rampant overbreeding of Quarter Horses. According to available reports from horse slaughter plants previously operating in the U.S., seven out of 10 horses slaughtered were Quarter Horses. That is a lot of relinquishing, Deb. That’s okay. You made your money, right?
Horse slaughter supporters in the horse industry inevitably challenge horse advocates such as the Int’l Fund for Horses, saying if we oppose horse slaughter, are we going to take care of all the unwanted horses that ending horse slaughter would produce, and why don’t we ever respond to that question?
Here’s our response. No, we are not.
It is not our job to take care of horses cast off by the horse industry. It is not our job to solve the problems you create. It is, however, our job to intervene on behalf of horses and work to get measures into place that protect them. It would therefore be our job to get laws enacted regulating the horse industry, such as the number of horses allowed to be bred, for a start.