Eating Horses: Get Your Head Out of Your Burro, Farm Bureau

Horse News

By R.T. Fitch on June 23, 2010 • ( 19 Comments )

Excerpt from Thomas Paine’s Corner

Brennan Browne’s response to:

“Your State Soon” By Bob Stallman, President, American Farm Bureau

The Farm Bureau's "Quartered" Horse

BS:
Horses are another target in the animal rights campaign. There are approximately 100,000 unwanted horses slaughtered each year and sent overseas for human consumption. But legislation in Congress (HR 503 and S311) would ban equines from being slaughtered, which would open the door for neglect. Animal rights organizations are preying on people’s emotion and touting their devotion to horses, but still offer no alternatives for what to do with these animals. The existing horse shelters are full and there is no funding for new ones. This is another extreme animal rights position that hitches a ride on the coattails of our national love for horses.

BB:
Your concern for neglected horses is touching. Unfortunately, your pseudo-sympathetic display falls woefully short of championing horses’ rights to live out their natural lives in peace; after being used up by the rich,”horsey” set, which overwhelming dumps their equine family members when they become too expensive, too old or can’t sire “winners.”

Horses that give their ALL in service to those that in return, unceremoniously betray them with a reward of desperation, hunger, thirst and terror, as they are crammed into trailers and carted off to be hacked to death and bled out for human consumption. Animal rights groups would LOVE to “prey” on peoples’ emotions, if only your ilk had any. Here’s your ‘alternative’ to equine slaughter and a message to horse “owners”: TAKE RESPONSIBILITY–make a commitment to your horses from cradle to grave–allow them a serene life and NATURAL DEATH. The horse racing industry accounts for much of the atrocity which horses endure throughout their lives and overwhelmingly fuels the glut of horses sent to their violent and gruesome deaths.

~The following is courtesy of Doris Lin who researches and blogs on animal issues ~

Animal rights activists do not believe in killing any animals for food, but there are several arguments that apply specifically to horses.

* Horse slaughter increases prices and profits for horse breeding. If there is no profitable or easy way to dispose of unwanted horses, fewer horses will be bred. As reported in the Morning News, “Before slaughterhouses closed, ranchers knew they could get $1 per pound for the meat. The same meat is now worth only about 20 cents per pound . . . Ranchers are also simply getting out of the horse business, said Ross Lockhart, owner of Stockman’s Pride in Bentonville. He used to raise registered quarter horses but hasn’t bred anything for the past two years.”

* Many Americans believe horses are special, and should be treated more like companion animals than livestock.

* Neglect and abandonment do not increase when slaughterhouses close. According to the International Fund for Horses:

California banned horse slaughter in 1998. California has experienced no increase in abuse cases, and even noted a decrease 3 years following the ban. During the 4 years that the Cavel slaughterhouse was closed, Illinois saw a noticeable decrease in abuse and/or neglect cases. Texas, which had the only two slaughter plants in 2003, had among the nations highest rates of cruelty and theft.

* Some believe that horse slaughter is unusually cruel. At some slaughterhouses, horses are first stunned with a captive bolt gun, then bled to death. However, the horses are sometimes improperly stunned, and are sometimes skinned and bled while still conscious.

* Allowing horse slaughter creates another source of profit for thoroughbred breeders, thereby supporting horse racing, to which many animal advocates object.

* Several major horse racetracks oppose horse slaughter.

* There are about 9 million domestic horses in the US, and approximately one percent of that number are sent to foreign slaughterhouses each year. If shipping live horses for slaughter were banned, that relatively small number of horses could be absorbed by the horse community in the US.

The Upshot

Whether prohibiting the export of live horses for slaughter will lead to neglect and abandonment remains to be seen, especially in an economy where foreclosures threaten all types of companion animals. However, several major racetracks oppose horse slaughter and taking away an incentive for breeding or overbreeding is a powerful argument against horse slaughter.

BS:
If this legislation passes, however, it will not only infringe on constitutional property rights, but it will set up a slippery slope for animal agriculture. If horse slaughter can be banned without being based on food safety, science or facts, what’s next?

BB:
Constitutional property rights? You have just unwittingly zeroed in on the number one reason for the existence of the AR Movement. Your callous, disgusting and arrogant belief that sentient beings are no more than “property,” [reinforced by antiquated laws which harken back several centuries] to be treated as despicably as you see fit and then disposed of at your whim. The day will soon arrive when monsters such as yourself will be held accountable in a court of law, where non-human beings will finally see justice done on their behalf. As for your “slippery slope” regarding animal ag torture, the toilet is its appropriate final resting place.

I’m not sure how “science”, Mr.-there-is-no-global-warming, fits into your pro-slaughter argument, so lets stick with food safety and facts. Aside from the obvious moral and ethical issues involved, horse slaughter should be banned based solely on LACK of food safety. It’s a well known ‘fact’ that race horses–which make up the vast majority of U.S. horses slaughtered for human consumption–are DOPED. Aside from this, any horse which has received even the equivalent of an aspirin or other oral medications will have those residues in his/her body at the time of slaughter. There are NO REGULATIONS in the U.S. to prevent horse owners from administering banned substances prior to slaughter because horses are not regarded as food animals. Something you must be well aware of since you happen to be a cattle rancher, who I’d bet the ranch, has sent more than your share of “unwanted” horses to slaughter. When you defend horse slaughter as a means of feeding the populace, you not only advocate an unnecessary evil at the expense of majestic beings, but you defend poisoning human beings as well.

To read the article in it’s entirety, click (HERE)

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Categories: Horse News, Horse Slaughter, The Force of the Horse

Tagged as: Animal welfare, Captive bolt pistol, Cruetly to Animals, equid, Equine, Farm Bureau, Horse, Horse racing, Horse Slaughter